f~' 


ilistoric  Jesus 


^^harles  Stanley  Lester 


\> 


SEP  U  1912 


DwisioQ   1E)S  2.42.0 
Section      .  L  6)  4-  2^ 


The  Historic  Jesus 


A  Study  of  the  Synoptic  Gospels 


By 


v/ 


Charles  Stanley  Lester 


^,\  1)^  ^/liAv^■ 


SEP  21 1912 


Die  Gestalt  Jesu  Christ!  ist  heute  durch  die  geschichtliche  Entwickelung  der  Kirchen 
eher  verdunkelt  und  ferngeriickt  als  unserm  klarschauenden  Auge  entbiillt. 

Houston  Chamberlain. 


Ohne  Wahrheit  kann  man  auf  die  Dauer  nicht  leben. — Friedrich  Andersen. 


G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons 

New  York  and  London 
XCbe   ■fiknicherbocl^ec    press 


IQI2 


CopvRiGHT,  igia 

BY 

CHARLES  STANLEY  LESTER 


%. 


Ube  titnicfierbocher  preee,  Hew  THottt 


MY  WIFE 

MY   INSPIRATION   FOR   FORTY   YEARS 

AND 

A  RADIANT  CENTRE  OF  LIGHT  AND   JOY  TO  ALL  WHO 

KNEW   AND   LOVED   HER 


t* 


PREFACE 

IN  the  year  1902,  a  lady  at  an  hotel  table  in  Florence, 
discussing  the  changes  which  the  broadening  of 
knowledge  was  making  necessary  in  the  reUgious 
traditions  of  the  world,  exclaimed  in  a  tone  which 
betrayed  the  anxious  consciousness  of  responsibiUty — 
"What  am  I  to  teach  my  boys?" 

To  the  author  the  question  seemed  like  a  personal 
challenge  and,  although  he  had  been  actively  engaged 
in  the  work  of  the  Christian  ministry  for  thirty  years, 
it  was  impossible  to  answer  it  by  reference  to  tradi- 
tional beHefs,  as  upheld  by  various  ecclesiastical 
authorities,  since  they  were  the  very  things  in  question. 

He  therefore  took  the  matter  very  much  to  heart 
and,  as  he  had  acquired  leisure  for  study  by  the  re- 
signation of  the  rectorship  of  St.  Paul's  Church,  Mil- 
waukee, after  twenty-two  years  of  service,  the  way  of 
duty  seemed  clear  to  become  once  more  a  learner,  and 
to  acquire  for  his  own  benefit,  and  then  for  the  benefit 
of  others,  such  more  intelligent  solutions  of  many 
reHgious  problems  as  is  made  possible  by  the  larger 
scholarship  of  the  present  day. 

It  soon  became  evident  that  the  most  important  of  all 
religious  questions  were  those  which  cluster  about  the 
person  and  work  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  that,  sharing 
his  wonderful  faith,  acquiring  some  of  his  moral  intui- 
tions, and  entering  into  his  hope  for  humanity,  the 


vi  Preface 

Christian  worid  may  develop  the  power  of  a  new  enthus- 
iasm from  its  inheritance  of  his  own  larger  perceptions 
of  the  meaning,  the  value,  and  the  purposes  of  life. 

Before  this  is  possible  it  is  necessary  to  clear  away 
the  misinterpretations  of  his  Hfe  and  work  which  have 
come  down  to  us  from  Jewish  and  pagan  sources,  and 
herein  we  are  greatly  aided  by  the  work  of  a  multitude 
of  scholars,  mostly  Germans,  which  has  been  devoted 
to  this  study  during  nearly  a  hundred  years. 

The  Higher  Criticism  of  the  Scriptures  has  been  hke 
the  dawn  of  a  great  new  light  upon  the  Christian  world, 
dissipating  the  darkness  of  the  ages,  showing  the  origins 
and  relations  of  things,  and  dissolving  many  barriers 
to  the  religious  progress  of  mankind.  For  the  multi- 
tude the  light  still  shines  in  the  darkness  and  yet  people 
do  not  love  darkness  because,  as  an  ancient  writer  once 
thought,  their  deeds  are  evil;  but  they  have  been  the 
unfortunate  victims  of  blind  guides  and  have  been 
taught  to  fear  the  light  as  a  dangerous  thing  which 
would  lead  them  astray. 

An  occasional  glimmer,  breaking  here  and  there 
through  the  crust  of  prejudice,  has  produced  the 
present  chaos  in  the  Christian  world,  making  it  easy 
for  a  multitude  of  men  to  enumerate  the  many  things 
which  they  do  net  believe,  but  leaving  them  all  at  sea 
as  to  the  helpful  and  positive  things  which  they  ought 
to  believe. 

It  would  seem,  therefore,  as  if  the  time  had  come 
when  it  was  the  duty  and  privilege  of  those  who  have 
lived  for  a  while  in  the  sunlight  of  a  larger  truth  to  take 
as  many  as  possible  of  their  fellow-men  into  their 
confidence,  showing  them  in  the  simple  splendour  of 
the  truth  which  makes  men  free  the  joy  and  power  of  a 
new  life  for  the  world,  and  the  new  inspirations  which 


Preface  vii 

religion  has  in  store  when  it  shall  be  freed  from  the 
blunders  of  the  past  and  deUvered  from  all  such  con- 
trol by  authority  as,  in  attempting  to  foster  it,  has 
generally  hindered  its  progress  among  men. 

It  is  the  purpose  of  this  work,  therefore,  to  discover 
as  far  as  may  be  the  real  Jesus  of  history  back  of  the 
interpretations  of  his  life  and  work  with  which  we  are 
familiar  in  the  Gospels,  that,  relieved  of  the  drapery  of 
mythology  and  set  free  from  all  dogmatic  fictions,  he 
may  be  recognised  as  the  permanent  source  of  the  moral 
power  of  the  world. 

It  is  the  search  for  the  real  Jesus  back  of  the  letter  of 
the  Gospel  narratives  which  causes  many  people  to 
denounce  the  Higher  Criticism  as  "Destructive  Criti- 
cism" and  it  certainly  is  destructive,  but  it  is  the  kind 
of  destruction  which  in  crushing  the  ore  allows  the 
recovery  of  the  gold,  or  in  grinding  the  wheat  sets  free 
the  life-giving  flour,  or  in  removing  the  staging  dis- 
closes the  symmetry  of  a  noble  building;  and,  when  the 
Higher  Criticism  shall  have  completed  its  work,  it 
will  be  found  to  have  been  vastly  reconstructive,  for  it 
will  have  put  the  grander  realities  of  life  upon  the  solid 
rock  of  truth,  instead  of  leaving  the  religious  beliefs 
of  the  Christian  world  to  be  propped  up  by  the  decaying 
timbers  of  authority  and  tradition. 

In  the  study  of  the  Gospels  it  has  seemed  expedient 
to  take  the  amended  text  and  translation  of  Wellhau- 
sen,  with  the  division  into  sections  and  the  showing  of 
parallel  passages  as  arranged  by  him. 

As  the  basis  of  his  study  is  Mark's  Gospel,  which  did 
not  include  the  collection  of  the  "Sayings  of  Jesus,"  as 
they  were  given  in  the  later  Gospels,  which  bear  the 
names  of  Luke  and  Matthew,  our  study  does  not  cover 
a  minute  examination  of  his  teaching,  but  only  of  so 


viii  Preface 

much  of  it  as  is  necessary  for  an  understanding  of  his 
attitude,  beliefs,  expectations,  and  efforts,  confining 
itself  chiefly  to  the  recovery  of  the  historic  Jesus  from 
the  mass  of  legends  and  misinterpretations  which  have 
so  long  kept  him  hidden  behind  a  cloud  of  unreality. 

The  book  is  written  especially  for  intelligent  laymen 
who  have  neither  the  time  nor  the  training  for  special 
studies,  that  they  may  know  what  is  going  on  in  the 
great  world  of  sober  and  intelligent  thought,  and  so  be 
won  to  help  instead  of  hindering  the  larger  progress  of 
the  world. 

There  are  plenty  of  books  written  for  scholars,  and 
thousands  of  men,  in  the  quiet  isolation  of  their  studies, 
as  much  separated  from  their  fellow-men  as  though 
they  were  monks  in  a  cloister,  are  enjoying  the  bright- 
ness of  a  larger  vision,  while  the  world  about  them 
plods  along  in  the  ruts  of  by-gone  centuries. 

Some  of  the  clergy,  too,  are  familiar  with  the  results 
of  scholarship,  but  it  is  impossible  for  them  to  take 
the  people  into  their  confidence  and  to  tell  them  the 
truth,  and  their  position  is  a  grievous  one,  since  they 
are  doubly  fettered.  The  various  Church  authorities 
hold  them  to  the  established  standards  of  the  past,  while 
in  every  congregation  a  troublesome  minority  is  always 
on  the  watch  foi  "heresy"  and  resists  every  invitation 
to  rearrange  its  mental  furniture  by  the  slow  and  pain- 
ful processes  of  thought. 

It  is  evident,  therefore,  that  the  hope  of  religion 
for  the  future  depends  very  largely  upon  the  laymen. 
When  a  goodly  number  of  them  shall  have  absorbed 
the  light  that  is  now  shining  in  the  darkness  they  will 
demand  the  emancipation  of  the  clergy,  who,  once 
delivered  from  ecclesiastical  control  and  unfettered  by 
theology,  will  become  actual  teachers  of  the  people  and 


Preface  ix 

leaders  in  the  development  of  the  human  mind  towards 
clearer  perceptions  of  truth. 

Our  study  cannot  be  dogmatic  and  does  net  assume 
to  be  final.  A  student  can  never  be  dogmatic  and  he 
who  has  grown  somewhat  into  the  spirit  of  Jesus  must 
be  forever  teachable.  Dogmas  are  obstacles  to  truth, 
since  they  are  nothing  but  the  petrified  speculations  of 
past  ages  blocking  the  way  of  life. 

Since  the  advent  of  the  scientific  spirit,  dogmatic 
statements  have  fallen  into  discredit  in  all  departments 
of  learning,  and  with  genuine  humility  men  are  ever 
more  ready  to  leave  the  lesser  perceptions  of  the  past, 
as  they  press  forward  to  the  larger  knowledge  of  the 
future;  nor  is  there  any  finality,  for  the  human  mind 
can  never  become  infinite  in  its  perception  of  truth,  a 
fact  which  is  full  of  encouragement,  since,  if  it  were  not 
so,  there  would  come  a  time  in  the  eternal  life  of  the 
soul  when  it  would  be  exposed  to  the  burden  of  a  hope- 
less ennui. 

Truth  is,  therefore,  for  us  not  all  truth  and  absolute 
truth,  but  an  approximation  thereto,  the  result  of  an 
adjustment  between  our  perceptions  and  external 
realities.  The  best  of  our  efforts  must  tend  to  make  the 
approximation  closer  and  the  adjustment  more  accurate 
while  we  realise  that  our  work  is  a  contribution  and 
not  a  finality,  a  contribution  which,  if  it  be  genuine, 
erects  a  new  milestone  in  the  progress  of  humanity, 
but  a  milestone  which  will  be  left  far  behind  in  the  sure 
progress  of  the  world  towards  a  better  knowledge  of 
things  as  they  are  and  have  been  and  a  larger  hope  for 
human  Hfe  as  it  will  be. 

It  is  in  this  spirit  that  we  enter  upon  the  study  of 
the  Gospels,  hoping  that  our  perceptions  of  the  historic 
Jesus  may  be  clearer  than  those  of  the  men  who  were 


X  Preface 

obliged  to  interpret  him  through  the  mists  of  the 
Jewish  and  pagan  religions  and  that,  with  the  debris  of 
old  religions  cast  aside,  the  religion  of  Jesus  may  have 
its  opportunities  enlarged,  becoming  in  reality  the  light 
and  power  by  which  men  live,  winning  them  in  the 
actual  love  of  God  and  a  realised  brotherhood  of  man 
to  an  intelligent  and  organised  culture  in  human  society 
of  the  things  that  are  true  and  beautiful  and  good. 

C.  S.  L. 

Washington,  October,  191 1. 


f. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

Preface      

iii 

Introduction; 

The  Sources         

I 

The  Chronology           .... 

12 

The  Belief  in  a  Messiah    . 

15 

The  Legends  of  the  Birth 

42 

The  Descent  of  Jesus 

65 

The  Leaven  of  the  Pharisees     . 

68 

76 

Jesus  in  Capernaum     .... 

98 

The  Period  of  Wandering  . 

149 

Jesus  on  the  Way  to  Jerusalem 

.     164 

The  Passion 

265 

Results  and  Prospects      .... 

405 

Among  My  Books 

415 

Index          

419 

XI 


1. 


The  Historic  Jesus 


INTRODUCTION 


THE   SOURCES 


VIRTUALLY  our  only  sources  for  any  knowledge 
of  the  life  and  teaching  of  Jesus  are  the  four 
Gospels,  an  intelligent  understanding  of  which  was 
impossible  so  long  as  the  whole  Christian  worid  held 
the  belief  concerning  them  which  the  Scribes  had 
invented  and  the  Pharisees  had  disseminated  with 
reference  to  the  Jewish  Scriptures,  that  they  were  super- 
natural and  infallible  documents.  But  since  the  battle 
of  scholarship  has  been  fought  and  won,  except  where 
some  form  of  ecclesiasticism  still  maintains  its  power 
over  the  ignorant,  it  has  been  recognised  that  the 
Gospels  are  literature,  subject  to  the  same  canons  of 
criticism  as  have  yielded  such  beneficent  results  when 
a/pplied  to  other  literary  treasures  from  the  ancient 
world.  When  the  way  was  thus  opened  for  their 
intelligent  study,  a  flood  of  questions  arose — Where 
were  they  written,  by  whom,  are  they  works  of  eye- 
witnesses, are  they  purely  historical  writings  by  com- 
petent authors,  or  were  they  written  to  defend  certain 
popular  beliefs?    Have  we  the  originals,  or  only  late 


2  The  Historic  Jesus 

copies  which  show  evidences  of  both  manipulation  and 
carelessness?  These  and  many  other  questions  have 
engaged  the  patient  labour  of  a  multitude  of  scholars 
during  the  past  hundred  years,  some  of  them  exerting 
their  efforts  to  maintain  traditional  interpretations  and 
others  seeking  only  to  get  as  near  to  the  truth  and 
the  facts  as  possible ;  and  it  is  safe  to  say  that,  in  the 
whole  range  of  the  human  search  for  knowledge, 
nothing  has  been  studied  so  patiently,  minutely,  or 
intelligently  as  the  four  Gospels.  The  end  is  not  yet 
and  all  problems  are  not  solved,  but  some  of  them  are, 
while  the  solution  of  others  has  reached  a  high  degree  of 
probability.  Avoiding  the  long  and  tedious  history  of 
criticism,  we  accept  such  results  as  are  already  estab- 
Hshed  and  such  probabiHties  as  seem  to  have  the  best 
foundations. 

The  three  oldest  existing  copies  of  the  Gospels  are 
the  Sinaiticus,  the  Alexandrinus,  and  the  Vaticanus,  the 
first  and  third  probably  from  the  fourth  century,  the 
second  from  the  fifth.  Our  earHest  surviving  record  is 
therefore  more  than  three  hundred  years  younger  than 
the  events  narrated,  a  lapse  of  time  which  allows  abun- 
dant opportunity  for  many  careless  blunders  of  copyists 
and  for  the  sHpping  of  many  marginal  notes  into  the 
text,  while  there  is  evidence  from  the  text  itself  that  in 
much  earlier  days  than  the  date  of  these  copies  changes 
were  made  and  whole  passages  interpolated. 

While,  however,  these  manuscripts  are  the  earliest 
existing  copies  of  the  Gospels,  their  existence  at  a  much 
earlier  date  and  virtually  as  we  know  them  to-day  is 
proved  from  the  works  of  the  Church  Fathers,  who, 
fortunately,  were  proHfic  writers  and  made  abundant 
quotations  from  the  Gospels.  Following  this  thread 
through  the  mazes  of  patristic  Hterature,  it  is  possible 


The  Sources  3 

to  trace  the  first  three  Gospels  back  to  the  year  120  a.d. 
and  the  fourth  to  the  year  150  a.d.,  before  which  date 
there  is  no  evidence  that  it  was  known. 

This  brings  us  to  the  greatest  of  the  problems  of  New 
Testament  criticism,  the  question  as  to  the  date  and 
authorship  of  the  fourth  Gospel  and  its  value  as  an 
historical  document,  the  most  bitterly  fought  of  all 
the  battles  aroused  by  the  study  of  the  Scriptures  and 
which  has  as  yet  reached  only  the  stage  of  a  drawn 
battle,  the  scholars  rejecting  it  and  ecclesiastical  authori- 
ties retaining  it  as  a  source  of  history,  because  so  much 
of  the  traditional  theology  is  based  upon  it. 

When  we  compare  the  four  Gospels  one  with  another, 
we  find  that  the  first  three  tell  virtually  the  same  story, 
for  which  reason  they  are  called  "Synoptic,"  while 
the  fourth  tells  a  totally  different  one,  so  different  and 
in  the  main  so  contradictory  that  we  cannot  accept 
both  accounts  as  historical  and  must  choose  between 
them. 

Avoiding  minor  details,  the  two  chief  points  of  differ- 
ence have  to  do  with  the  scene  of  the  work  of  Jesus  and 
the  matter  of  his  teaching.  In  the  Synoptic  Gospels  his 
work  is  wholly  in  GaHlee  until  the  last  week  of  his  life, 
in  the  fourth  Gospel  it  is  almost  entirely  in  and  about 
Jerusalem. 

In  the  Synoptic  Gospels  he  proclaims  the  coming  of 
the  Kingdom  of  God  and  devotes  himself  to  the  winning 
of  men,  especially  those  who  were  unfortunate,  dis- 
couraged, and  despised,  to  a  glad  preparation  for  citi- 
zenship in  the  coming  Kingdom. 

In  the  fourth  Gospel  he  discourses  about  himself  as  a 
mysterious  and  supernatural  being,  and  passes  in  solemn 
dignity  across  the  stage  of  Hfe,  declaring  that  the  major- 
ity of  the  Jews  were  children  of  their  father  the  Devil, 


4  The  Historic  Jesus 

while  his  sheep  heard  his  voice  and  knew  and  followed 
him. 

Instead  of  trying  to  reconcile  these  differences,  which 
is  impossible,  it  is  necessary  to  explain  them,  and  this 
explanation  is  to  be  found  in  the  different  objects,  as 
shown  by  the  Gospels  themselves,  for  which  they  were 
written.     The  earliest  Gospel,  which  is  Mark's,  and 
which  was  afterwards  incorporated  into  those  which 
bear  the  names  of  Luke  and  Matthew,  was  written 
to  persuade  Jews  that  Jesus  was  the  Messiah.     The 
fourth  Gospel,  on  the  other  hand,  was  written  to  win 
converts   to  the  Church,   which  was  becoming  well 
estabUshed  in  the  second  century,  among  the  Greeks, 
by  attempting  to  harmonise  Christian  beUefs  with  the 
philosophical  speculations  then  prevalent  in  Alexandria 
and  Ephesus.     Since  the  Jews  had  been  brought  into 
contact  with  Greek  civiUsation  through  the  conquests 
of  Alexander  the  Great  a  minority  had  taken  to  specu- 
lating  and,   acquiring   to   some  extent   cosmopoHtan 
sympathies,  had  undertaken  to  reconcile  the  traditional 
beliefs  of  Judaism  with  some  of  the  elements  of  Greek 
philosophy.     The   most   illustrious   exponent   of   this 
tendency  had  been  Philo,  who  was  a  contemporary  of 
Jesus  and  taught  in  Alexandria,  where  he  had  attempted 
to  show  that  Moses  was  the  himian  source  of  all  wisdom, 
both  Jewish  and  Greek,  and  that  the  Jewish  personi- 
fication of  Wisdom  as  the  chief  agent  of  God  was  identi- 
cal with  the  world-reason  of  the  Stoics  and  the  divine 
"Logos,"  "Word,"  or  "Reason,"  of  Plato.     Out  of 
this  theorising  had  arisen  the  Logos  of  Philo,  the  most 
majestic  and  fascinating  personification  ever  created 
by  the  genius  of  man,  destined  to  become  the  comer- 
stone  of  great    systems  and  to  make  its  charm  felt 
through  uncounted  generations  of  the  children  of  men. 


The  Sources  5 

Lesser  men  took  it  up  and,  in  the  chaotic  flux  of  old 
religions  which  characterised  the  first  three  centuries 
of  the  Christian  era,  wove  it  into  the  fantastic  systems 
of  Gnosticism,  which  bid  for  adherents  among  the 
shepherdless  multitudes  of  a  distracted  worid.  But 
within  the  Church  itself  there  was,  already  in  the  second 
century,  a  growing  system  of  Gnosticism  struggling 
for  recognition  as  orthodox  and  denoimcing  the  "oppo- 
sitions of  Gnosticism,  which  is  falsely  so  called" 
(i  Tim.  vi,  20).  Some  one,  whose  name  was  lost  to 
posterity,  essayed  the  bold  and  wonderful  task  of 
holding  fast  to  his  Christian  beliefs  while  maintaining 
his  adherence  to  the  ideas  of  Philo,  thus  both  bridging 
the  gulf  between  Christian  beliefs  and  the  dominant 
speculative  thought  and  defeating  all  rival  Gnosticisms 
by  making  their  most  attractive  feature  the  chief 
article  of  Christian  belief,  writing  a  Gospel  to  prove 
that  the  actual  Jesus,  whom  men  had  seen  and  known 
but  little  more  than  a  himdred  years  before,  was  the 
veritable  "Logos,"  "Reason,"  "Word,"  who  had 
existed  from  all  eternity  in  the  presence  of  God  and  was 
himself  a  God,  the  only-begotten  Son  of  his  Father,  the 
supreme  agent  in  creation  and  the  light  of  all  human 
intelligence.  Thus  the  ground  was  cut  away  from  all 
beliefs  of  earlier  Christian  days.  Jesus  was  no  longer 
a  Jewish  Messiah,  either  by  miraculous  endowment  at 
the  time  of  his  baptism,  or  by  descent  from  David ;  no 
longer  a  Son  of  God  by  a  human  mother,  in  accordance 
with  many  pagan  analogies,  but  a  philosophical  ab- 
straction made  man.  The  Gospel  written  in  further- 
ance of  this  belief  cannot  be  recognised  as  a  work  of 
history  nor  as  supplying  valuable  data  for  a  sober 
reconstruction  of  history.  Although  the  author  as- 
sumes that  the  "Word"  made  flesh  was  identical  with 


6  The  Historic  Jesus 

the  historic  Jesus  and  apparently  gives  an  historical 
narrative,  yet  he  makes  very  free  use  of  abundant 
quotations  from  the  Gospels  of  Mark  and  Luke  and 
from  a  third  source,  which  may  have  been  the  Gospel 
according  to  the  Hebrews,  converting  the  simpler 
narratives  into  evidences  for  his  theme  and  adding 
accounts  of  miracles  not  before  heard  of  in  illustration 
of  the  imHmited  power  of  the  incarnate  Reason  of  the 
World.  Not  only  is  it  impossible  to  admit  the  fourth 
Gospel  as  a  source  for  reliable  data  of  history,  but  the 
long-established  tradition  that  the  Apostle  John  was 
its  author  has  become  no  longer  tenable.  It  was 
Irenaeus,  a  very  careless  and  unreliable  writer,  who 
first  made  the  statement,  about  i8o  a.d.,  that  John 
was  the  author  of  the  Gospel  as  well  as  of  the  Epistles 
which  bear  his  name,  and  of  the  Book  of  Revelation, 
and  all  Christendom  until  recently  has  blindly  accepted 
his  statement  as  true.  To-day,  however,  a  Httle  in- 
telligent reading  of  the  book  itself  shows  an  anti- 
Jewish  spirit,  far  beyond  Paul's  theory  of  the  breaking 
down  of  the  barrier  between  Jew  and  Gentile,  whereas 
Paul,  in  an  epistle  of  undoubted  genuineness,  shows  that 
John  was  one  of  the  three  "pillars"  in  Jerusalem  full 
of  the  strongest  Jewish  prejudices.  The  strong  anti- 
Jewish  spirit  a  nong  the  Christians  did  not  display 
itself  imtil  towards  the  middle  of  the  second  century, 
nor  could  any  writer  have  incorporated  into  a  book 
such  terms  as  "Only  begotten,"  "Logos,"  "Pleroma" 
and  the  division  of  men  into  God's  children  and  Devil's 
children  under  the  rival  Kingdoms  of  Light  and  Dark- 
ness, until  they  had  been  made  familiar  by  the  Gnostic 
system  of  Satuminus,  Basilides,  and  Cerinthus,  not 
before  the  year  140  a.d.  We  must  conclude  for  these 
reasons,  and  there  are  many  more,   that  the  fourth 


The  Sources  7 

Gospel  is  a  philosophical  and  polemical  work  of  an 
unknown  author,  not  much  if  any  earlier  than  the 
year  150  a.d.,  written  with  the  bold  intention  of  break- 
ing a  way  through  the  wilderness  of  confusing  beliefs 
by  identifying  the  Logos  of  speculation  with  the  Jesus 
of  history.  Therefore,  while  it  is  a  work  of  genius, 
interesting  as  seen  in  its  historical  setting,  and  a  rich 
pasture  of  mysticism,  it  is  not  historical  and  its  state- 
ments are  not  available  as  the  data  of  sober  history. 

We  are  thrown  back,  therefore,  upon  the  Synoptic 
Gospels  and  new  questions  arise.  Are  they  three 
separate  transcripts  of  an  original  tradition,  or  did 
each  use  an  original  Gospel  now  lost?  Each  theory 
has  had  abundant  advocates,  but  both  have  been  found 
to  be  untenable. 

The  only  remaining  theory  is  that  one  of  the  three 
was  written  before  the  other  two  and  became  the  basis 
for  them.  The  question  is  —  which?  For  a  long 
time  it  was  held  that  Matthew's  was  the  earliest  Gospel, 
but  long  and  careful  study  has  shown  that  this  is 
impossible,  while  to-day,  among  all  unprejudiced  schol- 
ars, it  is  recognised  that  Mark's  Gospel,  substantially 
as  we  have  it  to-day,  with  the  exception  of  the  last 
twelve  verses,  was  the  earliest  written  Gospel.  It  is 
written  in  a  sort  of  Aramaic- Greek,  such  a  patois  as  a 
Jew  living  in  Palestine  would  have  picked  up  from 
uneducated  Greek-speaking  people,  and  this  is  a  strong 
evidence  of  its  originality,  for  no  one  would  have  trans- 
lated either  a  better  Greek  nor  an  Aramaic  original 
Gospel  into  such  a  hybrid  tongue.  There  is  apparently 
good  historic  ground,  therefore,  for  the  statement  by 
Papias,  about  150  a.d.,  that  Mark  wrote  his  Gospel 
from  recollections  of  what  he  had  heard  Peter  narrate, 
although  the  account  was  rendered  suspicious  by  later 


8  The  Historic  Jesus 

embellishments.  The  Gospel  itself  bears  evidence 
that  the  writer  was  influenced  by  the  theories  of  Paul, 
but  reflected  mainly  in  his  writing  the  original  belief 
of  the  Jewish  Christians  that  Jesus  was  the  Messiah 
and  that  his  object  in  writing  was  to  win  converts  to 
that  beHef . 

When  we  turn  to  the  Gospels  which  bear  the  names 
of  Luke  and  Matthew  we  find  that  they  contain  very 
neariy  the  entire  Gospel  by  Mark,  with  some  changes 
by  way  of  improving  the  language  and  others  in  the 
interest  of  later  beliefs.  They  contain  also  much 
matter  which  is  not  found  in  the  Gospel  by  Mark,  con- 
sisting mostly  of  short  sayings  and  parables  attributed 
to  Jesus.  The  question  is — where  did  the  authors 
discover  this  material?  Here  again  there  would  seem 
to  be  no  reason  for  doubting  the  statement  of  Papias 
that  Matthew,  otherwise  called  Levi,  one  of  the  orig- 
inal disciples  of  Jesus,  who  had  formerly  been  a  tax- 
collector  for  Herod  Antipas,  had  made  a  collection  of 
the  "Sayings"  of  Jesus.  Among  those  who  went  out 
in  the  early  days  to  preach  the  new  belief  in  Palestine 
there  must  have  been  various  treasures  of  the  things 
which  Jesus  had  said  and  taught,  each  collection  grow- 
ing by  itself  as  new  traditions  were  encountered  and 
each  containing  special  features  of  its  own.  It  is 
highly  probable  that  some  one,  quite  as  Hkely  to  be 
Matthew  as  any  one  else,  made  a  collection  of  these 
separate  deposits  of  tradition  and  then  that  he,  or  some 
one  borrowing  his  name,  adding  a  few  facts  from  the 
story  of  the  Hfe  of  Jesus,  wove  them  into  a  continuous 
narrative  and  so  put  forth  an  original  Aramaic  Gospel 
about  the  year  75  a.d.  This,  then,  or  something  very 
like  it,  would  be  the  principal  source  from  which  the 
"Sayings"  of  Jesus  found  their  way  into  the  later 


The  Sources  9 

Gospels  which  bear  the  names  of  Luke  and  Matthew. 
The  problem  as  to  which  of  these  Gospels  is  the  earlier 
is  by  no  means  settled.  Names  of  great  weight  and 
arguments  of  great  skill  advocate  the  claims  of  both 
for  precedence,  but  the  recognition  that  there  must 
have  been  an  earlier  Gospel,  which  bore  the  name  of 
Matthew  and  was  lost  after  the  later  Matthew  made 
its  appearance,  will  help  much  towards  its  solution. 
This  Gospel,  written  in  Aramaic  for  use  in  Palestine, 
would  reflect  the  strong  spirit  of  Judaism  which  char- 
acterised the  Christians  of  the  Jewish  race.  For 
Gentile  Christians  there  was  for  a  long  time  only  the 
Gospel  written  by  Mark  and  written,  as  already  stated, 
in  very  poor  Greek.  About  a  generation  after  its 
publication  a  writer  in  Rome,  of  poetic  temperament, 
gentle  disposition,  and  much  literary  ability,  conceived 
the  idea  of  writing  a  Gospel  for  the  benefit  of  pagan 
Christians,  which  should  not  only  be  in  better  Greek 
than  the  Gospel  by  Mark,  but  which  should  also  con- 
tain the  collection  of  the  "Sayings"  of  Jesus,  which 
were  the  special  treasure  of  the  Gospels  of  Palestine. 
He  foiind  many  other  sources,  as  he  states  in  his 
prologue,  besides  the  original  Gospel  which  bore  the 
name  of  Mark  and  the  one  containing  the  "Sayings" 
which  bore  the  name  of  Matthew,  which  accounts  for 
several  features  which  his  Gospel  and  the  later  Matthew 
do  not  have  in  common.  There  were  many  Gospels 
current  among  the  Jewish  Christians  which  never  came 
into  use  among  the  Greek-speaking  people  of  the 
growing  Church  and  gradually  dropped  out  entirely 
as  the  Gospels  in  Greek  proved  their  greater  fitness  to 
survive.  The  most  widely  circulated  among  them  was 
the  Gospel  according  to  the  Hebrews,  but  there  were 
also  those  of  the  Ebionites,  the  Egyptians,  of  Peter, 


10  The  Historic  Jesus 

Thomas,  and  others,  of  many  of  which  more  or  less 
extensive  fragments  still  survive. 

The  writer  of  this  new  Gospel  produced  a  charming 
work,  but  in  it  he  sometimes  sacrificed  the  facts  of 
history  to  Uterary  effect  and  idealised  the  Jesus  of  the 
Gospel  by  Mark,  softening  down  the  featiu-es  of  the 
bold  reformer  of  Judaism  and  the  active  enemy  of 
legalism,  extemalism,  and  hypocrisy  in  religion  into 
those  of  the  gentle  and  inoffensive  friend  of  sinful  and 
suffering  humanity.  The  author  does  not  give  his 
name.  Late  in  the  second  century  men  said  that  it 
was  Luke,  and  a  complacent  Christian  world  has  been 
satisfied  to  call  it  Luke  ever  since.  For  the  sake  of 
convenience  it  will  still  be  necessary  to  give  that  name 
to  the  unknown  author,  understanding  that  the  real 
Luke  was  probably  the  author  of  the  narrative  of 
Paul's  journey  to  Rome,  in  which  he  included  himself 
among  the  company  by  the  use  of  the  pronoun  "we," 
and  that  the  later  author  of  both  the  Gospel  and  the 
Book  of  Acts  incorporated  that  document  in  his  work. 
If,  as  has  been  shown  to  be  highly  probable,  the  author 
was  famiHar  with  the  works  of  Josephus,  which  were 
not  completed  until  the  close  of  the  first  century,  he 
could  not  have  written  his  Gospel  before  that  date. 

There  remains  for  consideration  the  Gospel  which 
bears  the  name  of  Matthew,  the  problem  of  which  is 
the  more  complicated  by  reason  of  the  serious  contra- 
dictions which  it  contains,  since  it  is  at  once  broad  and 
narrow,  legal  and  spiritual,  Jewish  and  anti-Jewish. 
This  strange  problem  is  best  explained  by  recognising 
the  Gospel  as  the  attempt  of  a  writer  in  Rome  to  har- 
monise the  tendencies  of  the  Aramaic  and  Greek  Gos- 
pels and  the  Semitic  and  Aryan  interpretations  of  the 
new  religion.     As  the  attempt  at  harmony  would  not 


The  Sources  ii 

be  undertaken  until  men  had  become  conscious  of  the 
differences  as  seriously  antagonistic  and  mutually 
exclusive,  it  is  impossible  to  assign  an  early  date  to  the 
Gospel  which  bears  the  name  of  Matthew,  a  conclusion 
which  is  much  strengthened  as  we  realise  its  ecclesias- 
tical and  legal  tendencies,  which  were  also  impossible 
before  the  growing  Church  had  acquired  a  well-devel- 
oped organisation  and  many  had  learned  to  consider 
the  new  religion  as  a  new  legalism  in  place  of  the 
older  Judaism.  As  these  conditions  were  not  established 
until  the  second  century  was  well  under  way  it  is 
impossible  to  place  the  date  of  the  Gospel  which  bears 
the  name  of  Matthew  earlier  than  the  year  120  a.d. 

The  recognition  of  two  Gospels  which  bore  the  name 
of  Matthew  solves  most  of  the  problems,  and  it  would 
appear  that  a  writer  in  Rome  took  the  older  Gospel 
which  bore  that  name  and  rewrote  it,  retaining  the 
name,  both  incorporating  into  it  ideas  borrowed  from 
the  Greek  Gospels  and  adjusting  it  to  ecclesiastical 
beliefs  and  customs  which  had  been  gaining  strength 
in  Rome  since  the  early  years  of  the  second  centiu-y. 
This  would  accoimt  for  the  strange  contradictions 
which  make  the  Gospel  seem  at  once  early  and  late. 
This  writer  quoted  naively  from  both  sources  without 
any  real  attempt  at  harmonising  them. 

Summing  up  our  too  brief  examination  of  the 
sources,  it  seems  most  probable,  until  more  light  is 
thrown  upon  the  problems,  that,  as  regards: 

Matthew,  there  was  an  Aramaic  Gospel, 
which  bore  his  name  and  contained  a 
collection  of  the  "Sayings"  of  Jesus  by 
the  real  Matthew,  written  in  Judaea 
about  the  year  75  a.d. 


12  The  Historic  Jesus 

Mark  was  written  in  Aramaic-Greek  by 
John  Mark,  a  companion  of  Peter  and 
Paul,  in  Alexandria  or  Rome,  about  67  A.D. 

Luke  was  the  work  of  an  unknown  author 

and  was  written  in  Rome  soon  after  100  A.D. 

Matthew,  on  the  basis  of  an  eariier  Matthew, 
was  written  by  an  unknown  author  in 
Rome  not  before  120  A.D. 

There  were,  however,  alterations  and  interpolations 
in  all  of  the  Gospels  after  these  dates  and  the  text  did 
not  acquire  a  fixed  form,  which  was  recognised  as  of 
canonical  authority,  until  about  the  year  175  A.D. 
It  will  be  necessary  in  the  following  pages  to  refer 
to  the  Gospels  which  bear  the  names  of  Luke  and 
Matthew  by  the  names  of  their  traditional  authors. 

THE   CHRONOLOGY 

Accurate  chronological  data  for  the  life  of  Jesus  are 
entirely  lacking.  Mark,  who  wrote  the  earliest  Gospel, 
made  no  statement  as  to  when  he  was  bom  for  the 
simple  reason  that  no  one  knew.  The  only  connection 
of  Jesus  with  av.tual  history  which  he  gives  is  in  the 
account  of  the  crucifixion,  which  he  says  took  place 
under  Pontius  Pilate.  This  establishes  the  date  of  the 
crucifixion  at  some  time  between  27  and  37  A.D.,  during 
which  time  Pontius  Pilate  was  Procurator  of  Judaea, 
Samaria,  and  Idumaea.  "Luke,"  writing  a  generation 
later,  recognised  the  deficiency  and  undoubtedly  did 
his  best  to  ascertain  the  facts,  which  was  not  only 
difficult,  but  well-nigh  impossible,  a  hundred  years 
after  the  events  and  at  a  great  distance  from  Palestine. 


The  Chronology  13 

The  statement  which  he  makes  in  the  third  chapter 
of  his  Gospel  shows  that  he  must  have  made  dihgent 
inquiry,  as  the  result  of  which  he  fixes  upon  the  15th 
year  of  Tiberius  as  the  time  when  Jesus  was  "about 
thirty  years  of  age."  This  is  very  imsatisfactory 
according  to  modem  methods  of  writing  history,  but 
it  is  as  near  the  facts  as  we  shall  ever  get,  assuming 
that  Luke  was  correctly  informed.  Tiberius  became 
emperor  August  19th  in  the  year  14  a.d.  The  fifteenth 
year  would  therefore  be  from  August,  28  a.d.  to  August, 
29  A.D.  If  the  fractional  year  at  the  beginning  of  his 
reign  should  be  reckoned  as  a  whole  year,  as  was 
often  done,  we  should  have  the  year  28,  but,  reckoned 
according  to  actual  years,  we  should  have  the  year  29, 
as  the  one  in  which  Jesus  was  about  thirty  years  old. 
Some  of  the  other  dates  given  by  Luke  agree  with  this. 
Pontius  Pilate,  as  already  stated,  was  procurator  from 
27  to  37  A.D.,  so  that  the  public  work  of  Jesus,  at  about 
thirty  years  of  age,  would  have  fallen  within  his  term 
of  office.  Herod  Antipas  was  Tetrarch  of  Galilee  and 
Peraea  from  4  B.C.,  to  39  or  40  a.d.  This  agrees  with 
the  other  dates.  Philip  was  Tetrarch  of  Iturasa  and 
Trachonitis  from  4  B.C.,  to  33  a.d.  This  also  agrees. 
Lysanias  had  been  Tetrarch  of  Abilene,  but  had  been 
executed  in  the  year  34  B.C.  His  dominion,  however, 
went  by  his  name,  until  Caligula  bestowed  it  upon 
Agrippa  I  in  the  year  53  a.d.,  which  accounts  for  the 
error  of  Luke.  The  mention  of  two  High-Priests  is 
inaccurate,  as  there  never  could  be  but  one  High-Priest 
at  a  time.  Caiaphas  was  the  actual  High-Priest,  but 
his  father-in-law,  Annas,  had  held  the  office  and  was 
still  the  power  behind  the  throne.  All  these  dates 
show  that  Luke  had  taken  pains  to  fix  as  nearly  as 
possible  the  time  of  the  public  work  of  Jesus,  with  the 


14  The  Historic  Jesus 

result  that,  in  all  probability,  he  entered  upon  it  in 
the  year  28  and  was  then  about  thirty  years  of  age. 
There  was  a  later  tradition,  as  shown  in  the  legends 
prefixed  to  the  first  and  third  Gospels,  that  Herod  the 
Great  was  still  alive  at  the  time  when  Jesus  was  born. 
As  Herod  died  in  the  year  4  B.C.  this  is  qmte  possible 
and  would  make  Jesus  thirty-two  or  thirty-three  years 
old  at  the  time  when  he  entered  upon  his  public  work, 
which  would  be  in  sufficient  accord  with  the  statement 
that  he  was  about  thirty  years  old  at  the  time.  It 
would  have  been  interesting  to  have  had  greater  ac- 
curacy and  yet  it  is  not  a  matter  of  serious  importance. 
The  really  important  fact  may  be  considered  as  satis- 
factorily estabHshed  that  Jesus  was  a  real  character 
of  history,  a  fact  which  has  sometimes  been  denied 
both  in  ancient  and  modem  times,  and  that  his  life  has 
an  actual  setting  within  well-defined  historical  limits. 
The  question  as  to  how  long  his  work  among  the 
people  lasted  also  cannot  be  solved  with  entire  satis- 
faction. The  Synoptic  Gospels  mention  only  one 
Passover  which  he  attended,  and  one  might  conclude 
from  this  fact  that  he  had  not  been  to  Jerusalem  before 
the  last  week  of  his  life  and  that  his  whole  work  was 
confined  within  a  single  year.  Luke  assigns  to  him  an 
impossible  address  at  Nazareth  at  the  beginning  of  his 
ministry,  in  which  he  is  made  to  quote  from  the  second 
Isaiah  the  words — "the  acceptable  year  of  the  Lord." 
In  the  second  century  the  Valentinian  Gnostics  fixed 
upon  this  passage  as  proving  that  his  work  was  confined 
to  a  single  year  and  that  opinion  has  been  the  prevail- 
ing one  ever  since,  although  the  fourth  Gospel  mentions 
two  other  Passovers  before  the  final  one  at  which  Jesus 
was  present  and  possibly  suggests  a  third.  The  writer 
of  the  fourth  Gospel  may  certainly  have  discovered  a 


The  Belief  in  a  Messiah  15 

true  tradition  as  to  visits  to  Jerusalem  in  previous 
years.  While  the  earher  Gospels  do  not  mention 
earlier  visits,  they  do  not  deny  them.  In  fact  they 
contain  suggestions  which  make  them  seem  probable, 
for  they  show  that  Jesus  had  friends  in  and  about 
Jerusalem,  while  his  saying,  as  reported  in  the  first  and 
third  Gospel — ' '  how  oft  would  I  have  gathered  thee ' ' — 
must  refer  to  visits  in  earher  years.  The  parable  of 
the  fig-tree,  too,  in  which  occur  the  words,  "Behold, 
these  three  years  I  come  seeking  fruit  on  this  fig-tree 
and  find  none, "  is  in  all  probability  a  parable  from  the 
actual  experience  of  Jesus. 

When  we  consider  also  the  excitement  which  his 
preaching  created  throughout  the  whole  of  Galilee  and 
beyond  and  then  the  gradual  defection  of  the  entire 
multitude,  except  a  small  band  of  devotees,  under  the 
influence  of  the  Scribes  and  Pharisees,  a  year  seems  all 
too  short  a  time  for  movements  on  so  large  a  scale,  and 
it  is  reasonable  to  conclude  that  his  public  ministry 
occupied  at  least  three  years,  which  would  make  the 
year  32  a.d.  very  probable  as  the  year  of  the  crucifixion. 

THE  BELIEF  IN  A  MESSIAH 

The  belief  in  a  Messiah,  as  it  existed  among  the 
Jewish  people  at  the  time  of  Jesus,  had  been  growing 
among  them  for  about  a  hundred  and  fifty  years. 
Before  that  time  there  was  no  such  belief,  nor  do  the 
canonical  Jewish  Scriptures,  commonly  known  among 
us  as  the  Old  Testament,  contain  the  slightest  refer- 
ence to  it. 

We  find  in  the  writings  of  the  prophets  anticipations 
and  promises  of  a  restoration  of  the  kingdom,  after 
the  punishment  of  the  people  for  their  transgressions. 


i6  The  Historic  Jesus 

Centuries  later,  when  notions  concerning  a  Messiah 
had  grown  up,  the  new  notions  were  identified  with 
the  earlier  expectations,  but  not  without  much  clumsy 
ingenuity  of  misconstruction  and  a  total  lack  of  any 
historical  consciousness. 

The  prophets  were  zealous  for  the  worship  of  Jahveh, 
whom  they  represented  as  angry  with  the  people  of 
Israel  and  Judah,  not  only  for  their  worship  of  other 
gods,  but  also  for  their  general  immorality  and  their 
constant  oppression  and  spoliation  of  the  poor.  The 
little  kingdoms  in  Palestine  and  the  neighbouring  lands, 
exposed  as  they  were  to  Egypt  on  the  one  side  and  the 
great  empires  on  the  Euphrates  on  the  other,  were  all 
destined  both  to  be  the  frequent  battle-ground  of  rival 
nations  and  eventually  to  be  ground  to  pieces  beneath 
the  devastating  army  of  a  conqueror.  Probably  the 
prophets  realised  this,  and  yet  they  found  it  conven- 
ient to  make  use  of  the  frequent  calamities  which  befell 
their  land  for  the  furtherance  of  their  propaganda. 
Jahveh,  they  said,  had  devised  and  arranged  the  suc- 
cessive invasions  and  desolations  as  punishments  for 
their  moral  shortcomings  and  their  neglect  of  his  wor- 
ship; but,  if  the  people  would  only  repent  and  reform, 
he  would  withhold  his  hand  and  either  divert  the 
punishment  or  at  least  shorten  the  time  of  the  "woes," 
and,  in  any  case,  he  would  not  entirely  destroy  the 
people,  but  after  sifting  out  the  wicked  would  save 
and  restore  the  remnant  to  greater  power  and  prosper- 
ity than  before.  This  was  the  general  program  upon 
which  all  the  prophets  were  agreed,  chastisement,  re- 
form, a  remnant,  and  a  restoration.  Each  filled  in  the 
details  of  the  picture  in  accordance  with  his  individual 
temperament  and  the  conditions  imder  which  he  wrote, 
but  the  general  impression  which  they  all  gave  was  that 


The  Belief  in  a  Messiah  17 

the  kingdom  would  be  restored  very  much  as  in  David's 
time,  and  that  a  descendant  of  David  would  win 
the  final  victory  and  establish  among  the  Jews  the  per- 
manent blessings  of  peace. 

Wherever  in  the  writings  of  the  prophets  before  the 
exile  anything  more  brilliant  than  this  is  promised,  a 
sort  of  Golden  Age  of  Judaism  with  a  widely  extended 
imperial  dominion,  it  is  a  forgery  of  a  much  later 
century,  which  is  apparent  from  the  fact  that  the  inter- 
polated passages  are  Aramaic,  while  the  rest  of  the 
books  are  Hebrew.  It  is  as  if  we  should  find  passages 
in  modem  English  in  the  Canterbury  Tales,  We  should 
say  at  once :  Chaucer  did  not  write  this. 

It  is  a  misfortune  that  priests  should  have  pretended 
to  write  history  or  should  have  had  the  sole  custody  of 
valuable  documents,  because  they  are  not  honest ;  and 
yet,  their  very  forgeries  become  valuable  when  dis- 
covered, because  they  disclose  the  purpose  of  the  priests 
to  mislead  the  present  by  distorting  the  past.  It  was, 
however,  no  distant  "Messianic  Era"  of  which  the 
prophets  dreamed.  The  promised  blessings  were  to 
follow  immediately  upon  the  reform  and  were  one  of 
the  two  levers,  the  other  being  the  predicted  "woes," 
by  means  of  which  they  hoped  to  bring  it  about. 

The  prophets  had  been  always  unpopular  and,  until 
the  raising  of  the  siege  by  Sennacherib,  which  had 
been  foretold  by  Isaiah,  had  been  little  heeded.  This 
remarkable  occurrence  fed  the  fires  of  Jewish  fanati- 
cism imtil  men  came  to  believe  that  Jerusalem,  being 
under  the  immediate  protection  of  Jahveh,  had  be- 
come impregnable.  Jeremiah  nearly  lost  his  Ufe, 
therefore,  in  the  following  centiu-y  by  proclaiming  its 
coming  destruction. 

When,  however,  his  predictions  came  true  and  the 


i8  The  Historic  Jesus 

Jews  were  driven  into  exile  in  597  and  586  B.C.,  men 
began  to  say  that  the  prophecies  were  really  the  "Word 
of  Jahveh, "  a  term  which  came  to  be  applied  later  to 
all  Jewish  Scriptures  and  later  still  to  Christian  Script- 
ures as  well,  the  two  collections  being  known  collect- 
ively as  the  "Word  of  God."  The  Jews  in  Babylon 
began  to  make  collections  of  prophetic  writings  and  to 
read  them  in  their  assemblies  on  the  Sabbath,  together 
with  the  provisions  of  the  recently  "discovered"  law 
recorded  in  part  of  the  book  of  Deuteronomy.  The 
"woes"  had  certainly  come  true.  People  began  to 
look  for  the  promised  restoration  and,  when  the  victory 
of  Cyrus  made  a  return  to  Palestine  possible,  they 
awaited  with  confidence  the  speedy  coming  of  the 
Golden  Age,  looking  first  upon  Cyrus  and  afterwards 
upon  Zerubbabel  as  the  prince  who  would  restore  and 
increase  the  somewhat  mythical  glory  of  the  kingdom 
of   David. 

The  attractive  feature  of  the  prophetic  program  was 
not  carried  out  and  the  expected  blessings  did  not  mate- 
rialise; for  the  company  of  enthusiasts  who  returned 
to  the  ruins  of  Jerusalem  was  doomed  to  a  sad  dis- 
illusionment, finding,  in  place  of  the  anticipated  wealth, 
splendour,  power,  and  miraculous  fertility,  new  poverty, 
hardships,  stn.  ggles,  hostiHties,  and  the  heavy  hand  of 
the  Persian  dominion.  Two  prophets,  Haggai  and 
Zechariah,  encouraged  them  with  the  promise  that, 
as  soon  as  the  new  temple  was  finished,  Jahveh,  who 
was  supposed  to  have  withdrawn  into  the  distant 
North  when  his  temple  was  destroyed,  would  return 
and  take  up  his  abode  in  the  new  temple,  and  then  all 
the  dreams  of  the  preceding  two  centuries  and  more 
would  come  true,  for  the  long-anticipated  prince, 
Zerubbabel,  was  already  on  the  ground. 


The  Belief  in  a  Messiah  19 

Continued  disappointments  dulled  the  edge  of  hope, 
and  the  Jewish  people,  forgetting  the  dreams  of  their 
fathers,  gradually  settled  down  under  the  Persian 
dominion  into  contentment  with  their  priestly  ritual 
and  their  ceremonial  law,  both  of  them  greatly  ela- 
borated by  Ezra,  put  forth  by  him  as  the  "law  of 
Moses"  and  enforced  by  Nehemiah,  acting  under 
authority  of  the  King  of  Persia,  in  the  year  444  B.C., 
nearly  a  hundred  years  after  the  return  of  their  fathers 
from  Babylon. 

In  all  this  long  period  of  Jewish  history,  covering 
more  than  three  centimes  from  the  time  of  Amos  to 
that  of  Nehemiah,  there  was  no  thought  or  suggestion 
of  a  Messiah.  Only  the  earlier  prophets  had  assiu^ed 
the  people  that  a  descendant  of  David  would  over- 
throw their  enemies  and  re-estabUsh  the  kingdom  as 
soon  as  the  reforms  had  taken  place,  while  to  Ezekiel 
it  seemed  as  if  Jahveh  himself  would  reign  in  Jerusalem, 
the  descendant  of  David  being  only  a  sort  of  executive 
officer  under  him.  By  the  beginning  of  the  foiui-h 
century  B.C.  all  such  expectations  had  been  outgrown 
and  forgotten,  and  for  more  than  two  hundred  and  fifty 
years  from  that  time  the  Jewish  people,  entirely  satis- 
fied with  their  strange  laws,  which  made  them  a  pecul- 
iar people  cut  off  from  the  rest  of  the  human  race, 
had  no  political  aspirations  and  had  ceased  to  care  who 
ruled  over  them,  so  long  as  they  were  unmolested  in 
the  enjoyment  of  their  religious  peculiarities. 

During  the  comparative  quiet  of  Persian  and  Egypt- 
ian dominion  the  Jewish  religion  underwent  a  great 
transformation  and  Judaism  was  bom,  one  of  the  most 
extraordinary  phenomena  in  the  religious  history  of 
the  world,  for  it  is  nothing  less  than  the  building  of  a 
religion  upon  the  basis  of  race  egoism.     By  means  of  a 


20  The  Historic  Jesus 

law  which  kept  the  Jews  almost  entirely  excluded  from 
contact  with  the  rest  of  mankind,  and  by  the  enforced 
prohibition  of  marriage  with  other  people,  the  priests 
succeeded  in  time  in  building  up  an  almost  absolutely 
pure  race,  which  assumed  to  be  the  chosen  people  and 
special  proteges  of  God. 

They  are  credited  with  having  developed  and  with 
having  taught  the  world  monotheism,  which  is  not 
true.  By  the  road  of  race  conceit  they  did  arrive  at 
monolatry,  assuming  first  that  their  god  was  the  god 
of  gods  because  he  could  apparently  control  the  gods 
of  other  nations  and,  finally,  that  he  was  the  only  god, 
because  they  were  the  only  people  worth  mentioning. 
Monotheism  is  the  result  of  Indo-European  thinking. 
The  Semitic  mind  is  incapable  of  it.  It  can  conceive 
only  of  will  and  power  and  is  always  materiaHstic. 

The  Jews,  too,  have  been  credited  with  spiritual- 
mindedness,  and  millions  of  men  have  fed  their  souls 
with  the  spirituality  of  many  of  the  Psalms  for  more 
than  two  thousand  years.  But  did  the  Jews  write 
them?  The  population  of  Judaea  before  the  exile 
contained  a  large  proportion  of  Amorite  stock,  which 
was  an  Indo-European  stock.  This  stock  was  in  their 
blood  when  they  returned  and  while  its  influence  lasted 
the  most  spiritual  of  the  Psalms  were  written.  After 
it  was  entirely  bred  out  of  them  by  their  new  rules  of 
exclusiveness,  that  is  after  about  200  B.C.,  one  may 
look  in  vain  for  any  spirituality  in  Jewish  literature. 
There  is  nothing  but  materialism. 

The  new  Judaism  was  aided  by  two  institutions,  the 
temple,  with  its  ancient  barbaric  cult  recently  much 
elaborated,  and  the  synagogue,  ever  ready  to  devise 
new  means  for  tightening  the  fetters  of  race  exclusive- 
ness. 


The  Belief  in  a  Messiah  21 

The  dream  of  a  restored  Jewish  dominion  was  gone, 
and  men  no  longer  expected  a  successor  of  David  since 
the  High-Priests  had  acquired  the  splendotir  and 
trappings  of  royalty.  Even  the  conflicts  which  followed 
the  breaking  up  of  Alexander's  dominion  did  not  dis- 
turb the  new  spirit  of  Jewish  equanimity,  as  is  evident 
from  the  46th  Psalm;  and  things  might  have  gone  on 
in  this  manner  indefinitely  but  for  a  most  serious 
calamity  which,  in  disclosing  the  intensity  of  Jewish 
beliefs,  unlocked  the  flood-gates  of  fanaticism  and 
delayed  for  some  centuries  the  religious  progress  of 
the  world.  The  more  narrow-minded  among  the 
Jews  had  long  been  alarmed  at  the  growing  tendency 
among  the  high-priestly  and  wealthier  classes  to  adopt 
Greek  customs  and  modes  of  thought,  thus  breaking 
down  the  strict  observance  of  the  law,  which  had  been 
devised  to  keep  the  Jew  entirely  separated  from  the 
rest  of  the  human  race,  when  the  overt  act  of  Antiochus 
Epiphanes  produced  a  terrific  explosion  of  wrath  and 
brought  out  among  the  Jews  an  amazing  intensity  of 
fanaticism  and  unsuspected  power  of  bravery  and 
endurance;  for  Antiochus  attempted  nothing  less  than 
the  entire  suppression  of  the  Jewish  rehgion. 

Since  by  the  fortune  of  war  Palestine  had  fallen 
once  more  into  the  hands  of  the  Greek  kings  of  Asia, 
the  High-Priest  was  obUged  to  pay  a  tribute  of  three 
hundred  talents  in  place  of  the  twenty  formerly  paid 
to  the  Ptolemies.  Onias  HI,  who  was  High-Priest  at 
the  time,  had  a  wicked  brother,  Jesus  by  name,  who  had 
become  entirely  Hellenised  politically  and  morally, 
and  had  found  a  Greek  form  for  his  name,  calling  him- 
self Jason. 

The  latter  proposed  to  Antiochus  to  add  140  talents 
to  the  tribute,  if  he  would  depose  Onias  and  make  him 


22  The  Historic  Jesus 

High-Priest  in  his  stead,  together  with  an  additional 
150  talents  in  return  for  the  privilege  of  building  a 
gymnasium  and  circus  in  Jerusalem,  and  for  granting 
the  citizenship  of  Antioch  to  the  citizens  of  Jerusalem. 
Antiochus  naturally  fell  in  with  these  proposals,  both 
because  he  needed  the  money  and  because  he  was 
anxious  to  establish  a  greater  uniformity  of  religion 
and  custom  throughout  his  empire. 

The  deposition  of  a  High-Priest  by  a  foreign  ruler 
was  a  thing  unheard  of  and  caused  great  scandal  and 
grief  among  the  fanatical  adherents  of  Judaism,  and 
soon  ominous  threatenings  were  heard  when  Jason,  to 
show  the  extent  of  his  new  cosmopolitan  sympathies, 
carried  an  offering  to  the  temple  of  the  Phoenician 
Hercules  at  Tyre.  Jason  did  not  long  enjoy  his  ill- 
gotten  wealth  and  position.  He  sent  a  man  who  had 
Hellenised  his  name  into  Menelaus  to  carry  the  tribute 
to  Antiochus  at  Antioch.  Menelaus  played  the  same 
game  which  Jason  had  found  profitable  and  offered  an 
additional  300  talents  if  Antiochus  would  make  him 
High-Priest  in  place  of  Jason,  which  was  immediately 
done,  to  the  great  increase  of  Jewish  indignation;  for, 
while  Jason  did  belong  to  the  high-priestly  family, 
Menelaus  was  not  even  a  Levite  and  could  not,  accord- 
ing to  the  law,  lave  filled  the  lowest  menial  office  in  the 
temple.  Menelaus  succeeded  in  driving  out  Jason  and 
then,  notwithstanding  extreme  methods  of  extortion, 
found  it  impossible  to  raise  the  promised  tribute  of 
more  than  a  million  dollars.  It  was  from  this  time 
that  publicans  and  sinners  came  to  be  spoken  of  in  the 
same  breath,  that  a  rich  man  came  to  be  identified  with 
a  bad  man,  and  that  honest  poverty  came  to  be  con- 
sidered the  fundamental  condition  of  any  possible  piety. 
Menelaus  could  not  pay  the  tribute  and  fell  into  con- 


The  Belief  in  a  Messiah  23 

flict  with  the  commander  of  the  fortress.  Both  were 
summoned  to  Antioch.  Menelaus  left  his  brother 
Lysimachus  as  his  representative  in  Jerusalem,  and 
found  a  certain  Andronicus  in  charge  of  the  king's 
affairs,  the  latter  being  engaged  in  a  war  in  Cilicia. 
He  proceeded  to  bribe  Andronicus  by  the  gift  of  gold 
vessels  which  he  had  stolen  from  the  temple,  but  the 
theft  was  discovered  and  exposed  by  Onias  III,  the 
deposed  High-Priest,  then  living  at  Daphne,  who 
learned  also  that  Menelaus  had  been  selling  other 
treasures  of  the  temple  in  Phoenicia.  Andronicus,  to 
save  himself  from  the  charge  of  bribery,  beguiled  Onias 
into  Antioch  and  killed  him,  while  Menelaus  pacified 
Antiochus  on  his  return  from  Cilicia  with  a  new  in- 
voice of  gold  vessels  from  the  temple  at  Jerusalem. 

The  accumulated  storm  of  indignation  in  Jerusalem 
broke  out  into  riot,  and  after  bitter  fighting  in  the 
streets  Lysimachus  lost  his  life  and  three  thousand  of  his 
followers  were  slain  or  driven  from  the  city.  The 
people  sent  three  delegates  to  Antiochus  with  charges 
against  Menelaus  for  temple  robbery,  but  it  suited 
Antiochus  to  sustain  Menelaus  and  he  put  the  delegates 
to  death  as  the  representatives  of  a  revolutionary  party. 
Not  long  thereafter  Antiochus  went  to  war  with  Egypt, 
whence  a  rumour  came  back  that  he  had  been  killed. 
Jason,  taking  advantage  of  this,  laid  siege  to  Jerusalem 
in  which  he  found  many  adherents,  but,  after  some 
preliminary  successes  which  he  abused  to  take  ven- 
geance upon  his  enemies,  he  was  finally  driven  off  and 
soon  thereafter,  still  in  the  year  170  B.C.,  Antiochus, 
returning  from  Egypt,  treated  Jerusalem  as  a  cap- 
tured city. 

In  place  of  the  occasional  thefts  by  Menelaus,  he 
proceeded  to  the  wholesale  plundering  of  the  temple. 


24  The  Historic  Jesus 

The  golden  altar,  candlestick,  table,  with  all  the  vessels 
and  ornaments,  were  carried  away,  together  with  all 
the  gold  in  the  treasury,  and  on  his  departure  Antio- 
chus  left  a  rough  Phrygian  by  the  name  of  Philip  in 
charge  of  the  city,  with  Menelaus  still  as  High-Priest, 
expecting  that  these  two  men  would  soon  establish 
the  complete  observance  of  the  Greek  rehgion  and 
customs.  He  did  not  realise  at  the  time  how  completely 
interwoven  the  Jewish  law  was  with  every  detail  of 
life,  controlling  the  eating  and  drinking,  cooking  and 
washing,  marriage,  agriculture,  and  all  occupations. 
Either  his  experiences  of  the  law  as  an  obstacle  to  his 
plans,  or  suggestions  from  Jews  who  were  willing  to 
see  their  religion  abolished,  brought  about  the  final 
blow  two  years  later.  Returning  from  Egypt  in  the 
year  i68  B.C.,  smarting  under  the  loss  of  the  fruits  of 
victory  at  the  command  of  the  Roman  Senate,  Antio- 
chus  let  loose  the  full  fury  of  his  wrath  upon  the  people 
of  Jerusalem,  sending  thither  at  first  an  army  of  22,000 
under  a  tax-collector  by  the  name  of  Apollonius  with 
orders  to  the  soldiers  scattered  throughout  the  city,  on 
the  first  Sabbath  after  their  arrival,  to  kill  every  Jew 
at  sight.  There  followed  a  fearful  scene  of  carnage, 
pillage,  and  fire.  Women,  children,  and  cattle  were 
driven  away,  :ralls  and  houses  were  overthrown,  and 
the  plunder  of  the  city  was  collected  in  the  fortress  of 
Acra,  built  higher  and  stronger  than  ever.  The  74th 
Psalm  describes  and  laments  the  wrecking  of  the  temple. 
Soon  thereafter  came  the  decree  abolishing  the  Jewish 
religion  and  prohibiting  sacrifices,  festivals.  Sabbath 
observance,  circumcision,  the  reading  or  teaching  of  the 
law,  all  under  penalty  of  death,  and  officials  through- 
out the  land  were  ordered  to  watch  for  every  act  of 
disobedience.     This  wide-spread  religious  persecution 


The  Belief  in  a  Messiah  25 

was  the  more  extraordinary  because  it  was  entirely 
contrary  to  the  spirit  of  Greek  civiHsation  and  was 
without  precedent  in  the  annals  of  Greek  political  life, 
whence  the  suspicion  is  strong  that  Antiochus  was 
instigated  thereto  by  renegade  Jews,  whose  past  history 
supplied  abundant  records  of  this  method  of  settling 
religious  controversies.  In  fact,  religious  murder  was 
commanded  in  their  law  (Deut.  xvii)  and  all  the  per- 
secutions for  religion  which  have  darkened  the  annals 
of  Christendom  have  found  their  authority  in  Jewish 
law  and  precedent. 

The  final  blow  came  on  the  25th  of  December,  168 
B.C.,  when  a  pagan  altar  was  erected  upon  the  great 
altar  of  burnt  offering  and  swine  were  sacrificed  to  one 
of  the  Greek  gods.  This  was  the  "Abomination  of 
desolation,"  afterwards  "spoken  of  by  Daniel  the 
Prophet";  and  this  brings  us  to  a  remarkable  book 
which  made  its  appearance  within  a  year  or  two  of 
this  time  and  which  had  an  astonishing  influence  upon 
the  Hfe  and  belief  of  the  Jewish  people  ever  afterwards. 
Its  double  purpose  was  to  strengthen  their  constancy 
under  persecution  and  to  encoiu-age  them  by  pictures 
of  a  brilliant  future  yet  in  store  for  them  as  a  nation. 
The  book  makes  a  bid  for  acceptance  by  the  assumption 
of  a  false  antiquity,  for  the  author  pretends  to  have 
lived  four  hundred  and  thirty  years  earlier  and  to  have 
been  carried  away  to  Babylon  together  with  some  of  his 
friends  in  the  deportation  of  the  year  597  B.C.  In  order 
to  encourage  his  countrymen  to  hold  out  against  the 
persecutions  under  Antiochus,  he  invents  some  inter- 
esting stories  to  show  how  constancy  was  rewarded  in 
those  ancient  times,  giving  as  illustrations  his  own 
experience  in  the  lion's  den  and  that  of  his  three  friends 
in  the  fiery  furnace.     For  their  further  edification  and 


26  The  Historic  Jesus 

stimulus  he  turns  prophet  and,  in  pretending  to  fore- 
tell the  events  of  the  preceding  foiir  centuries,  gains 
credence  for  his  brilliant  picture  of  events  which  must 
soon  come  to  pass.  His  knowledge  of  history  down  to 
the  time  of  Alexander  the  Great  is  very  dim,  but  it  was 
not  a  critical  age  and  there  was  no  one  to  detect  his 
historical  and  archaeological  mistakes.  After  Alexan- 
der's time  his  knowledge  is  more  accurate,  and  when  he 
reaches  the  time  of  Antiochus  IV  his  statements  are 
those  of  an  eye-witness.  He  describes  a  remarkable 
dream  of  Nebuchadnezzar  which  he  alone,  like  Joseph 
in  the  ancient  legend,  was  able  to  interpret.  Nebu- 
chadnezzar sees  in  his  dream  a  wonderful  statue  with 
a  head  of  gold,  breast  and  arms  of  silver,  torso  of  brass, 
legs  of  iron,  and  feet  of  mingled  clay  and  iron.  Daniel 
is  taught  the  interpretation  in  a  night  vision  and 
explains  to  the  King  that  there  are  to  be  four  great 
monarchies  in  succession,  the  last  one  being  divided. 
As  this  interpretation  had  come  true  when  the  book 
was  written  and  men  could  see  the  fulfilment  of  the 
supposed  prophecy  in  the  successive  empires  of  the 
Chaldaeans,  Medes,  Persians,  and  Greeks,  while  they 
themselves  were  living  in  the  days  of  the  divided  Greek 
empire  and  had  witnessed  the  unprofitable  attempts  of 
the  iron  and  clay  to  mix  in  the  marriages  between  the 
families  of  the  Greek  kings  and  the  Ptolemies,  the  im- 
pression among  those  who  read  the  book  must  have 
been  profound,  awakening  in  the  midst  of  the  immediate 
agony  a  new  delirium  of  hope,  as  men  fed  their  souls 
upon  the  picture  of  the  stone  which  grew  into  a  moun- 
tain and  which  in  breaking  the  feet  of  the  statue 
brought  down  into  complete  and  eternal  ruin  the 
tyrannies  of  all  the  centuries,  that  God  himself  might 
erect  a  new  kingdom  which  should    "consume"   and 


The  Belief  in  a  Messiah  27 

"break  in  pieces"  and  "stand  for  ever, "  thus  establish- 
ing for  his  "chosen  people"  the  sovereignty  over  all 
the  nations  of  the  earth.  To  make  the  brilliant  pro- 
spect of  the  future  still  more  certain  the  author  relates 
a  dream  of  his  own  very  like  that  which  he  assigns  to 
Nebuchadnezzar.  He  sees  four  beasts,  a  lion  with 
wings,  a  strange  bear,  a  leopard  with  wings  and  four 
heads,  and  an  indescribable  monster.  At  last  the 
"Ancient  of  Days"  sits  in  judgment  and  the  beast  is 
slain.  Then  one  "like  the  Son  of  Man"  comes  in  the 
clouds  of  heaven.  "And  there  is  given  him  dominion 
and  glory  and  a  kingdom,  that  all  people,  nations,  and 
languages  should  serve  him;  his  dominion  is  an  ever- 
lasting dominion  which  will  not  pass  away,  and  his 
kingdom  that  which  will  not  be  destroyed."  This 
is  explained  to  the  author  by  "one  of  them  that  stood 
by."  The  four  beasts  represent  the  four  empires,  as 
in  the  dream  of  Nebuchadnezzar.  The  "horn"  that 
is  to  make  war  against  the  saints  and  prevail  against 
them,  that  is  to  "speak  great  words  against  the  Most 
High  and  to  wear  out  the  saints  of  the  Most  High  and 
think  to  change  times  and  laws,"  is  no  other  than  Antio- 
chus  IV.  For  men  living  in  the  midst  of  the  sufferings 
of  a  great  persecution,  this  prophecy  was  not  only  a 
consolation  but  the  source  of  an  enthusiasm  which 
could  not  stop  growing  until  it  reached  the  white  heat 
of  frenzy  and  fanaticism:  "But  the  judgment  will  sit 
and  they  will  take  away  his  dominion  to  consume  and 
destroy  it  unto  the  end.  And  the  kingdom  and  do- 
minion and  the  greatness  of  the  kingdom  under  the 
whole  heaven  will  be  given  to  the  people  of  the  '  Saints 
of  the  Most  High,'  whose  kingdom  is  an  everlasting 
kingdom  and  all  dominions  will  serve  and  obey  him." 
This  is  certainly  very  encouraging,   but  it  is  not 


28  The  Historic  Jesus 

modest,  and  no  other  people  has  ever  had  the  conceit 
and  arrogancy  to  call  itself  the  "Saints  of  the  Most 
High, "  nor  to  imagine  itself  entitled  to  universal  sover- 
eignty, because  it  was  the  special  favourite  of  God. 

The  older  prophets  had  been  content  to  promise  a 
restoration  of  the  kingdom  of  David,  but  this  unknown 
writer  of  the  year  167  B.C.,  in  holding  up  before  the 
people  the  picture  of  a  universal  Jewish  monarchy,  was 
largely  responsible  for  the  wars,  tumults,  fanaticisms, 
and  sufferings  of  the  succeeding  two  hundred  and  fifty 
years,  until,  after  the  agony  of  the  Roman  siege,  the 
dream  was  shattered  by  Titus,  and  the  people  were 
compelled  to  discover  new  meanings  to  prophecies 
which  were  not  prophetic  and  to  find  new  interpreta- 
tions to  dreams  which  could  not  come  true. 

In  all  this  interesting  portrayal  of  wonderful  events 
which  were  soon  to  happen,  the  writer  makes  no  men- 
tion or  suggestion  of  a  Messiah.  As  he  imagines  the 
older  empires  fitly  symboHsed  by  impossible  and  terri- 
fying monsters  which  had  come  up  from  the  abyss,  so 
the  new  Jewish  empire  was  symbolised  by  a  being  like 
a  man,  for  the  expression  "Son  of  Man"  means  man, 
and  nothing  more.  It  is  a  symbol  and  not  a  person, 
just  as  the  eagle,  the  bear,  the  leopard,  and  the  monster 
were  symbols  t  ad  not  realities.  The  old  empires  had 
been  brutal  and  rooted  in  hell.  The  new  empire  is  to 
be  human  and  humane  and  to  have  its  origin  in  heaven. 
The  angel  which  is  represented  as  explaining  the  vision 
to  Daniel  says  distinctly  that  the  dominion  is  to  be 
given  to  the  "Saints  of  the  Most  High, "  not  to  a  person, 
and  no  one  ever  thought  of  mistaking  the  symbolism 
until  the  extravagant  theories  of  a  later  date  beguiled 
the  scribes  and  afterwards  the  Christians  into  discover- 
ing in  the  Book  of  Daniel  the  prophecy  of  a  Messiah. 


The  Belief  in  a  Messiah  29 

It  is  the  province  of  a  sane  and  sober  study  of  history 
to  correct  the  blunders  of  ignorance  and  folly  and  to 
show  that  until  long  after  this  book  was  written,  which 
was  in  or  very  soon  after  167  B.C.,  no  one  among  the 
Jews  had  expected  any  such  person  as  afterwards  came 
to  be  imagined  under  the  title  of  Messiah.  The  older 
prophets  had  expected  and  promised  a  restoration  of 
the  kingdom  of  David  and  often  under  a  king  de- 
scended from  David.  Four  centuries  of  disappoint- 
ment, made  tolerable  by  contentment  with  the  new 
reHgion  of  Judaism,  had  obliterated  that  ancient  hope, 
and  the  dream  which  fired  the  hearts  of  men  and  women 
under  the  persecution  of  Antiochus  was  of  a  totally 
different  sort ;  in  place  of  the  little  kingdom  of  David, 
a  world-wide  empire ;  in  place  of  a  prince  of  the  house 
of  David,  God  himself  as  the  supreme  ruler  enthroned 
in  Jerusalem.  There  was  no  room  in  the  scheme  of 
things  for  a  Messiah,  for  the  "Saints  of  the  Most 
High"  were  to  be  the  vicegerents  of  God.  On  the 
basis  of  this  new  hope  the  Jewish  people  dreamed  a 
dream  which  has  never  been  equalled  in  the  annals  of 
human  delusion,  a  materiaHstic  dream  of  wealth  and 
power  which  became  the  frequent  stimulus  to  hopeless 
insurrections  and  in  which  ideals  of  righteousness  were 
strangely  commingled  with  the  gleam  of  gold. 

The  book  owed  its  success  in  part  to  the  author's 
attempt  to  fix  the  dates  when  the  wonderful  things 
foretold  would  happen,  and  especially  when  relief  would 
come  from  the  agony  of  persecution. 

He  explains  that  when  Jeremiah  had  predicted  sev- 
enty years  as  the  term  of  the  Jewish  sojourn  in  Babylonia 
he  had  really  meant  seventy  weeks  of  years,  or  490 
years,  from  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem  to  the  establish- 
ment of  the  Jewish  empire.     By  some  ingenuity  and  a 


30  The  Historic  Jesus 

disregard  of  seventy  years  he  estimates  that  483  years 
were  to  have  passed  between  the  deportation  to  Babylon 
and  the  time  when  an  anointed  one  (a  Messiah)  should 
be  cut  off.  The  anointed  one  who  was  cut  off  was 
Onias  III,  the  anointed  High-Priest,  who  was  put  to 
death  in  the  year  171  B.C.  He  still  has  seven  years  of 
the  490  years  left  and  says  that  "in  the  midst  of  the 
week,"  that  is  three  and  a  half  years  from  the  death 
of  Onias,  the  "prince"  would  cause  "the  sacrifice  and 
oblation  to  cease,"  which  manifestly  refers  to  the 
abolition  of  the  Jewish  religion  by  Antiochus  IV  in 

168    B.C. 

According  to  his  theory'  there  are  three  and  a  half 
years  left,  during  which  the  persecutions  will  endure, 
before  the  final  relief  and  victory.  His  interpreter  of 
events  explains  to  him:  "From  the  time  that  the  daily 
sacrifice  shall  be  taken  away  and  the  abomination  that 
maketh  desolate  set  up  there  will  be  a  thousand  two 
hundred  and  ninety  days."  To  this  another  seven 
weeks  are  added  as  the  time  of  the  final  struggle,  for  he 
is  told :  ' '  Blessed  is  he  that  waiteth  and  cometh  to  the 
thousand  three  hundred  and  five  and  thirty  days." 

This  positive  assurance  of  relief  at  a  fixed  date 
brought  immeasurable  consolation  to  a  people  in  agony, 
giving  them  patience  to  endure  and  bravery  to  struggle, 
while  the  brilliant  picture  of  coming  power  and  domin- 
ion, appealing  to  the  baser  passions  of  the  human  heart, 
developed  the  fighting  power  of  a  people  accustomed  for 
centuries  only  to  the  dull  drudgery  of  religious  routine. 
Nor  was  this  all,  for  the  writer  assured  the  Jewish 
people  that  those  who  lost  their  lives  in  a  holy  war  or 
who  fell  beneath  the  axe  of  the  executioner  would,  after 
the  divine  victory,  be  brought  back  by  God  in  their 
original  bodies  to  enjoy  the  splendour  and  power  of 


The  Belief  in  a  Messiah  31 

the  Jewish  dominion  and  would  receive  their  full  share 
of  the  spoil  of  a  conquered  world.  This  is  the  first 
Jewish  writer  who  ever  taught  a  belief  in  a  conscious 
personal  existence  after  the  death  of  the  body.  Among 
the  Greeks  a  belief  in  the  immortality  of  the  soul, 
awakened  by  philosophy  and  taught  in  the  Mysteries, 
had  been  growing  for  centuries  and  had  been  spread 
throughout  the  Orient  by  the  conquests  of  Alexander, 
finding,  however,  no  congenial  soil  in  the  consciousness 
of  the  Jewish  people. 

The  unknown  author  of  the  Book  of  Daniel,  passing 
by  this  sublime  belief,  the  grandest,  next  to  the  belief 
in  God,  which  ever  inspired  and  comforted  the  human 
heart,  adopted  the  Persian  belief  in  a  restoration  of 
the  physical  body,  both  as  more  congenial  to  the  materi- 
alistic instincts  of  the  Jewish  race  and  as  an  added 
stimulus  to  fanatical  endurance  amid  the  distressing 
exigencies  under  which  he  wrote.  Instead  of  the 
emancipation  and  freedom  of  the  human  soul,  with 
unending  vistas  of  growth  towards  the  things  that  are 
true  and  beautiful  and  good,  it  was  to  be  brought  back, 
imprisoned  once  more  within  the  limitations  of  the 
physical  frame,  subjected  again  to  the  sordidness,  the 
sensuousness,  the  general  materiaUsm  of  physical  exist- 
ence, in  order  that  a  fortunate  minority  of  Jews  might 
live  in  a  city  built  wholly  of  gold  and  precious  stones 
(it  came  to  this  afterwards  in  the  Book  of  Tobit)  and, 
in  the  idle  luxury  of  the  vicegerents  of  God,  receive 
the  tribute  of  a  subjugated  world. 

Such  is  the  origin  of  the  Jewish  and  Christian  belief 
in  the  resurrection  of  the  body,  a  materialistic  notion 
which  has  delayed  the  growth  of  spiritual  conscious- 
ness for  more  than  twenty  centuries.  Christian  people 
ought  to  know  whence  it  came  and  to  recognise  it,  not 


32  The  Historic  Jesus 

as  a  revelation  from  God,  but  as  the  debasing  of  a 
true  spiritual  perception  to  the  material  instincts  of 
the  Semitic  race.  To  the  Jew  it  was  welcome  and  vital 
because  it  guaranteed  him  his  share  in  the  coming 
intoxication  of  splendour  and  power.  To  the  average 
man,  who  leads  only  a  sensuous  life,  it  is  still  the  only- 
way  in  which  he  can  apprehend  the  continuity  of  per- 
sonal existence;  but,  as  men  grow  intelligent  and  spirit- 
ually-minded, the  prospect  of  a  new  imprisonment  in  a 
body  limited  in  all  directions  will  be  recognised  as  an 
intolerable  hindrance  to  the  spirit's  growth,  and  the 
time  will  surely  come  when  they  will  drop  the  familiar 
words,  "I  beUeve  in  the  resurrection  of  the  body, "  and 
will  declare,  under  the  inspiration  of  a  true  spiritual 
perception,  "I  believe  in  the  immortality  of  the  soul." 

It  was  no  wonder  that  among  an  ignorant,  credulous, 
and  suffering  people  the  Book  of  Daniel  found  a  ready 
welcome,  nor  that  a  host  of  imitators  should  follow, 
vying  with  one  another  in  the  extravagant  portrayal 
of  victory  and  dominion  by  which  a  deluded  people 
was  stimulated  to  great  deeds  of  heroism,  only  to  be 
overwhelmed  at  last  by  greater  calamities  and  complete 
and  final  ruin. 

All  of  these  writers,  following  so  illustrious  an  example, 
hid  their  perso.  lalities  behind  some  ancient  name  whose 
antiquity  and  mythical  renown  seemed  to  be  a  guarantee 
of  veracity. 

Thus  we  find,  among  many  others,  the  works  of  two 
supposed  Sibyls,  the  Book  and  Allegories  of  Enoch, 
the  Psalter  of  Solomon,  the  Book  of  Jubilees,  the  Reve- 
lation of  Baruch,  the  Revelation  of  Ezra,  the  Testa- 
ment of  the  Patriarchs  and,  among  books  now  lost, 
those  which  bore  the  names  of  Adam  and  Noah, 
Jannes  and  Jambres.     It  was  these  books  and  many 


The  Belief  in  a  Messiah  33 

more  like  them,  now  lost,  which,  in  the  century  before 
and  the  century  after  the  time  of  Jesus,  guided  the 
thoughts  and  shaped  the  beliefs  of  a  multitude  among 
the  Jewish  people.  Ideas,  beliefs,  and  hopes  derived 
from  them  were  dominant  among  the  adherents  of 
Jesus  and  controlled  the  interpretation  which  they  gave 
to  his  person,  his  mission,  and  his  work  and,  bequeathed 
by  them  to  a  world  becoming  Christian,  they  have 
hidden  the  historic  Jesus  for  nineteen  centuries  behind 
a  veil  of  Jewish  phantasy  and  delusion. 

Very  few  read  them  now.  The  majority  do  not 
even  know  of  their  existence,  but  they  become  im- 
portant by  reason  of  their  unfortunate  consequences 
and  are  attractive  to  those  who  are  interested  in  the 
pathology  of  fanaticism. 

Many  of  them  present  a  philosophy  of  history  unique 
in  its  naivete  and  conceit  of  race;  for  according  to  it 
the  entire  history  of  the  world,  so  much  as  the  authors 
knew,  is  but  a  series  of  events  prearranged  and  brought 
about  by  God  with  sole  reference  to  the  Jews,  the  only 
people  in  the  world  for  whom  he  is  concerned,  in  whom 
he  is  interested,  so  that  sun  and  moon  and  planets 
exist,  empires  rise  and  fall,  wars  are  waged,  and  people 
suffer,  struggle,  and  die,  in  order  that  eventually  the 
Jews  may  become  the  dominant  race.  With  this  simple 
and  convenient  explanation  of  history  the  writers  pro- 
ceeded each  in  his  own  way  to  portray  the  wealth, 
splendour,  and  power  of  the  favourites  of  God,  which 
awaited  only  the  removal  of  a  few  remaining  obstacles 
for  their  complete  realisation.  Side  by  side  with  the 
materialistic  dreams  there  went  another  picture  of 
the  righteousness  which  would  be  realised  in  the  new 
life  of  the  Jewish  people,  for  there  were  among  the  Jews 
many  holy  and  humble  men  of  heart  to  whom  purity 


34  The  Historic  Jesus 

and  justice  were  living  ideals  and  who  looked  forward 
with  the  patience  of  faith  and  hope  to  conditions  of 
life  under  which  all  men  should  be  just  and  merciful 
and  true;  and  yet,  when  the  mental  tendencies  of  races 
are  better  understood,  it  will  be  recognised  that  the 
sweeter  ideals  and  perceptions  of  a  minority  among  the 
Jews  were  due  to  surviving  traces  of  an  ancient  Amorite 
ancestry,  which  was  an  Indo-European  stock,  for  these 
better  things  were  foreign  to  the  Semitic  consciousness. 
The  idea  of  a  Messiah  was  by  no  means  common  to 
these  writers.  Most  of  them,  probably  the  majority, 
expected  God  himself  to  intervene  and  to  destroy  the 
dominion  of  Rome  [for  many  of  them  wrote  after  the 
sovereignty  had  passed  to  Rome]  and  then  either  to 
reign  in  person  in  Jerusalem  or  to  entrust  the  adminis- 
tration of  human  affairs  entirely  to  the  "Saints. "  Our 
purpose  is  to  discover  such  of  the  books  as  were  re- 
sponsible for  the  belief  in  a  Messiah.  Prominent  among 
them  was  the  Book  of  Enoch,  a  book  not  only  of  great 
influence  in  shaping  Jewish  belief,  but  popular  among 
the  Christians  for  many  centuries,  disappearing  finally 
in  the  ninth  century  to  be  rediscovered  in  the  eigh- 
teenth. It  is  in  two  parts,  the  original  work  dating 
from  somewhere  near  the  middle  of  the  second  cen- 
tury B.C.,  to  which  were  added  the  allegories  by  a  later 
writer.  The  original  book  was  the  work  of  a  sort  of 
Oriental  Dante  in  which  the  author,  assuming  to  be  the 
mythical  Enoch,  who  tradition  said  had  been  taken  up 
alive  to  heaven,  gives  a  detailed  account  of  his  interest- 
ing experienc-e.  The  angels  take  him  upon  a  journey 
through  the  entire  universe,  explaining  to  him  the  ori- 
gin and  operation  of  everything  in  the  natural  world 
and  showing  him  the  place  of  departed  spirits,  the 
joyous  abodes  of  the  righteous  and  the  torments  of  the 


The  Belief  in  a  Messiah  35 

damned,  finally  giving  him  a  commission  to  return  to 
earth  and  acquaint  the  fallen  angels  with  their  doom. 

During  his  celestial  journey  he  is  shown  the  tree  of 
life  which  is  reserved  for  the  righteous,  together  with 
the  tree  of  knowledge  on  which  grew  the  apples,  the 
eating  of  which  had  caused  so  much  misery  on  earth. 
In  the  allegorical  part  of  the  book,  of  much  later  date, 
another  writer,  who  also  assumes  to  be  Enoch,  sees  the 
vast  pageantry  of  the  heavenly  court  with  four  of  the 
supposed  seven  archangels,  is  given  direct  information 
concerning  the  "Chosen  One,"  the  "Son  of  Man,"  and 
is  told  how  he  is  to  judge  the  world  and  establish  his 
kingdom.  Here  the  symbolical  "Son  of  Man"  of  the 
Book  of  Daniel,  at  least  a  hundred  years  earlier,  be- 
comes a  personal  Messiah,  who  is  said  to  have  been 
pre-existent  in  heaven,  to  have  been  created  before 
the  sun  and  the  stars,  and  to  have  been  hidden  by  God 
before  the  creation  of  the  world.  This  is  the  source  of 
many  beliefs  afterwards  wrought  into  a  system  of 
Christian  theology  and  transmitted  as  an  essential 
part  of  "revealed"  religion. 

The  author  shows  that  before  the  final  peace  and 
joy  the  people  of  Palestine  will  have  to  suffer  from  the 
fearful  devastation  of  a  Parthian  invasion  which,  how- 
ever, will  suddenly  stop  when  the  wild  hordes  reach  the 
sacred  city  of  Jerusalem.  Then  the  kingdom  will  be 
established.  The  Messiah  will  dwell  in  the  midst  of 
his  people  who  will  live  in  familiar  intercourse  with 
him  and  with  the  angels.  The  heavens  will  be  trans- 
formed and  in  the  new  Jerusalem,  from  which  all 
"sinners"  are  excluded,  the  righteous  Jews  will  enjoy 
an  unending  life  in  which  goodness,  physical  comfort, 
and  wealth  are  strangely  blended.  It  was  this  fantastic 
book  which  more  than  any  others  built  up  among  the 


36  The  Historic  Jesus 

Jewish  people  those  extravagant  phantasies  concerning 
a  Messiah  which  were  current  in  the  time  of  Jesus. 

Another  interesting  book  which  appeared  in  Alexan- 
dria about  the  middle  of  the  second  century  B.C., 
claiming  the  Erythraean  Sibyl  as  its  author,  shows 
how  the  Jewish  spirit  was  modified  by  the  cosmopoli- 
tanism of  a  larger  environment,  for  it  predicts  a  coming 
confederation  of  righteous  nations,  each  retaining  its 
independent  sovereignty  and  yet  all  united  under  the 
over-lordship  of  Jerusalem  as  the  centre  and  capital 
of  a  regenerated  world,  really  a  grand  idea  and  the 
worthiest  which  issued  from  the  delirium  of  a  people 
which  had  lost  all  intelligent  guidance  and  all  rational 
control.  It  predicts  a  Messiah  who  is  to  help  on  the 
process  of  the  world's  transformation,  but  who  dis- 
appears before  the  consummation  in  order  that  God 
may  be  supreme  in  the  government  of  the  world. 

Even  before  the  Book  of  Daniel  was  written,  the 
rage  of  the  Jewish  people  at  the  profanation  of  the 
temple  and  attempted  suppression  of  their  religion 
had  aroused  among  them  an  indomitable  spirit  of  hero- 
ism and  devotion,  while  the  brilliant  exploits  of  the 
family  of  the  Maccabees,  aided  by  the  troubles  of 
Antiochus,  had  re-estabHshed  the  national  life  and, 
under  the  rei^a  of  a  royal  High-Priest,  made  it  seem  as 
if  the  wildest  dreams  of  the  enthusiasts  were  on  the 
eve  of  their  fulfilment.  Family  quarrels,  apparently 
inseparable  from  any  Oriental  dominion,  together 
with  the  intrigues  of  the  Pharisees,  then  first  brought 
upon  the  arena  of  history  as  the  party  of  a  narrow 
legalism  and  a  bitter  orthodoxy,  soon  shattered  the 
new  dream  of  Jewish  dominion  and,  in  bringing  the 
Romans  upon  the  scene  in  the  person  of  Pompey, 
opened  a  new  chapter  of  misery  for  the  Jews  and 


The  Belief  in  a  Messiah  37 

aroused  new  writers  to  tell  once  more  the  fascinating 
story  of  splendour  and  dominion  which  had  so  often 
fed  the  imagination  of  this  much-deluded  people. 
Soon  after  the  taking  of  Jerusalem  by  Pompey  in  the 
year  63  B.C.,  appeared  a  book,  known  as  the  Psalter  of 
Solomon,  which  comforted  the  people  in  their  new 
distress.  God  is  king,  not  the  hated  Asmonaean 
dynasty.  This  was  Pharisaic  doctrine.  God  is  to 
have  a  vicegerent,  who  will  be  called  David's  son, 
God's  Son,  and  Messiah.  The  author  does  not  antici- 
pate one  individual  as  the  permanent  ruler  tmder 
God,  but  simply  a  succession  of  descendants  of  David's 
family,  for  he  says  that  God  has  chosen  David  for  king 
and  has  sworn  to  him  that  through  his  seed  his  kingdom 
will  endure  forever. 

As  in  this  book,  so  also  in  the  new  SibylHne  prophecy, 
which  made  its  appearance  in  the  time  of  Cleopatra 
and  which  expects  the  destruction  of  the  visible  uni- 
verse as  soon  as  the  Romans  shall  have  taken  Egypt, 
it  is  God's  Kingdom  which  is  to  emerge  from  the  uni- 
versal ruin  and  it  is  upon  God's  Kingdom  rather  than 
upon  the  person  of  a  Messiah  that  all  the  emphasis  is 
laid. 

The  same  is  true  of  the  "Ascension  of  Moses," 
which  appeared  after  the  death  of  Herod.  It  knows 
nothing  of  a  personal  Messiah.  In  the  Book  of  Jubi- 
lees early  in  the  first  Christian  century  it  is  taught  that, 
while  other  nations  are  under  the  dominion  of  spirits, 
God  has  put  no  one  over  Israel,  for  he  alone  is  its 
ruler. 

The  Revelation  of  Baruch,  which  made  its  appear- 
ance after  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem  by  Titus,  in 
the  year  70  a.d.,  and  in  which  the  writer  pretended  to 
have  been  the  friend  and  companion  of  Jeremiah,  added 


38  The  Historic  Jesus 

more  fuel  to  the  fire  of  Jewish  phantasy,  always  stimu- 
lated to  fresh  extravagance  after  each  new  calamity. 
In  it  a  Messiah  plays  the  principal  role,  for  it  is  to  be 
his  mission  to  destroy  all  the  people  in  the  world  hostile 
to  the  Jews,  who  have  escaped  the  wars,  famines,  fires, 
and  earthquakes,  which  God  had  mercifully  provided 
for  their  annihilation.  Especially  will  the  Messiah 
destroy  the  Roman  Empire  and  bring  the  last  emperor 
in  chains  to  Jerusalem  to  be  put  to  death. 

Then  the  Messiah  is  to  rule  over  the  righteous  and 
the  new  Jerusalem  descends  from  heaven.  There  will 
be  no  more  sadness,  nor  envy,  nor  strife,  neither  pain, 
nor  weariness,  nor  hunger.  The  wild  animals  will  be- 
come suddenly  tame  and  the  fertility  of  the  soil  will 
be  increased  ten-thousand-fold,  for  each  grape-vine  will 
have  a  thousand  branches,  each  branch  a  thousand 
bunches,  each  bunch  a  thousand  grapes,  and  each  grape 
will  yield  ninety-five  gallons  of  wine. 

About  ten  years  after  the  appearance  of  this  inter- 
esting book  there  appeared  another  called  "The  Revela- 
tion of  Ezra,"  which  told  virtually  the  same  story. 
According  to  it  the  Messiah  does  not  even  need  to 
fight,  but,  standing  upon  Mt.  Zion,  he  annihilates  all 
the  enemies  of  the  Jews  with  the  breath  of  his  mouth, 
which  turns  \ )  fire  and  flame.  The  Messiah  is  to 
reign  four  hundred  years,  after  which  he  dies  and  then, 
after  a  general  resurrection,  God  holds  a  final  judgment 
over  all  mankind,  admitting  the  righteous  to  Paradise 
with  access  to  the  tree  of  life  and  condemning  the 
"godless"  to  perpetual  hunger  and  distress. 

From  this  rapid  survey  of  the  apocalyptic  literature 
we  learn  that  the  belief  in  a  Messiah  had  absolutely  no 
existence  among  the  Jewish  people  until  within  about  a 
century  of  the  birth  of  Jesus,  that  it  owed  its  origin 


The  Belief  in  a  Messiah  39 

and  cultivation  entirely  to  the  most  absurd  and  fan- 
tastic literature  which  ever  issued  from  a  diseased 
imagination,  and  was  readily  accepted  by  an  ignorant, 
credulous,  and  superstitious  people  because  it  held  out  a 
ray  of  hope  among  those  who  were  always  suffering 
from  oppression  and  tyranny  and  were  frequently 
exposed  to  persecution  and  death. 

We  learn  too  that  there  was  no  general  consensus  of 
belief,  but  only  a  wild  chaos  of  fantastic  expectations, 
the  only  agreement  being  in  the  anticipation  of  a 
kingdom  which  should  destroy  and  replace  the  sover- 
eignty of  Rome  and  bring  the  Jews  into  power  with 
dominion  over  all  the  earth.  Some,  captivated  espe- 
cially by  the  books  which  bore  the  fictitious  names  of 
Enoch,  Baruch,  and  Ezra,  expected  a  personal  Messiah 
as  the  vicegerent  of  God,  but  more  thought  that  God 
would  reign  in  person  in  Jerusalem,  dividing  among 
"the  Saints "  the  positions  of  honour  and  power.  Some 
thought  that  the  new  kingdom  would  be  permanent, 
while  others  limited  its  duration  and  expected  at  its 
close  a  general  resurrection  of  all  mankind,  a  final 
judgment  upon  individuals,  and  then  a  greater  kingdom 
in  heaven  when  the  earth  had  been  destroyed  and  time 
should  be  no  more.  Many  a  righteous  soul  drew  con- 
solation from  the  thought  that  very  soon  the  horrors 
of  war  would  cease,  that  the  hated  tax-gatherer  would 
no  more  rob  them  of  the  fruits  of  toil,  and  that  under  the 
reign  of  justice  they  would  be  protected  from  spoliation 
by  the  rich ;  while  others,  less  attracted  by  the  dream  of 
righteousness,  gloated  over  the  prospective  debauchery 
of  materialism  when  they  should  revel  in  the  spoil  of  a 
conquered  world;  and  yet  others,  fired  by  fanatical  zeal, 
listened  readily  to  the  call  of  any  wild  enthusiast  who 
promised  to  lead  them  to  the  overthrow  of  Rome. 


40  The  Historic  Jesus 

This  delirium  of  a  people,  which  had  begtin  to  grow 
in  the  century  before  the  birth  of  Jesus,  was  exploited, 
directed,  and  intensified  by  the  scribes,  disseminated 
by  the  Pharisees,  and  often  fanned  into  fury  by  the 
Zealots. 

The  scribes  were  the  chief  offenders  and  were  directly 
responsible  for  the  intoxication  of  the  Jewish  people, 
for  they  were  its  accredited  teachers  surrounded  by  a 
halo  of  infallibility.  If  they  had  been  sane,  intelli- 
gent, and  honest  men  they  would  have  denounced  the 
entire  mass  of  apocalyptic  literature  as  a  fraud,  but, 
on  the  contrary,  they  gave  it  their  sanction,  reading, 
interpreting,  and  expounding  it  to  the  people  and  put- 
ting it  virtually  on  a  par  with  the  Law  and  the 
Prophets  which  they  had  already  taught  them  were 
infallible. 

They  went  still  farther,  for,  having  taken  up  the 
idea  of  a  Messiah  as  set  forth  in  part  of  this  strange 
literature,  they  taught  that  the  belief  concerning  him 
was  identical  with  the  expectations  of  the  ancient 
prophets  concerning  a  descendant  of  David  who  would 
restore  the  kingdom  of  David  to  its  former  and  largely 
imaginary  splendour  and  power. 

On  the  basis  of  this  assumption  they  set  to  work  to 
discover  in  the^r  Scriptures  prophecies  of  a  Messiah  as 
described  in  part  of  the  new  literature  of  delusion.  By 
taking  single  passages  away  from  their  context,  by 
ignoring  history  altogether,  and  by  much  violent  in- 
genuity of  misinterpretation  they  succeeded  in  finding 
abundant  prophecies  of  a  Messiah  where  they  did  not 
exist.  The  early  Christians,  trained  from  childhood 
in  this  school  of  dogmatic  iniquity  and  believing  as  they 
did  that  Jesus  was  the  Messiah,  surpassed  the  scribes 
in  the  insanity  of  their  exegesis  and  used  their  misin- 


The  Belief  in  a  Messiah  41 

terpretations  of  Jewish  Scripture  as  materials  for  telling 
and  afterwards  for  writing  the  story  of  Jesus.  Thus 
it  has  come  about  that  the  whole  Christian  world  for 
nearly  nineteen  centuries  has  been  misled  by  the  scribes, 
who  were  the  enemies  of  Jesus. 

It  is  time  that  this  iniquity  stopped  and  that  in- 
telligent people  throughout  the  Christian  world  learned 
that  the  idea  of  a  Messiah  had  its  origin  only  in  the 
fantastic  dream  of  a  few  irresponsible  fanatics,  that 
there  never  could  be  a  corresponding  reality  and  con- 
sequently that  Jesus  was  not  a  Messiah. 

It  becomes  necessary,  therefore,  in  studying  the 
Synoptic  Gospels,  to  eliminate  from  them  the  very 
theory  in  support  of  which  they  were  written,  and  to 
discover,  as  far  as  possible,  back  of  their  misinterpre- 
tation of  his  person,  such  actual  facts  concerning  him- 
self, his  purpose,  and  his  method  as  belong  to  a  sane 
and  sober  reconstruction  of  history. 

We  have  learned  already  that,  while  all  the  writers 
of  apocalyptic  literature  portrayed  the  splendours  of 
the  coming  kingdom,  a  personal  Messiah  was  not  an 
essential  part  of  the  general '  dream,  and  we  need  to 
realise  that  for  this  reason  opinions  were  divided  at 
the  time  of  Jesus,  some  expecting  a  Messiah  as  an  all- 
conquering  King  and  others  looking  for  the  direct 
intervention  of  God  in  human  affairs.  We  shall  learn 
from  our  study  of  the  Gospels  that  it  was  this  latter 
belief  which  filled  the  soul  of  Jesus  with  enthusiasm, 
courage,  and  hope. 

It  was  the  coming  of  God  and  the  establishment  of 
God's  Kingdom  which  he  preached.  A  Messiah  as 
the  representative  and  agent  of  God  had  no  place  in  his 
thoughts,  except  as  a  possibility  of  secondary  value, 
while  his  overwhelming  interest  in  the  Kingdom  of  God 


42  The  Historic  Jesus 

precluded  the  possibility  of  his  identifying  himself  with 
the  Messiah  of  the  popular  consciousness. 

In  view  of  these  facts  it  is  idle,  as  so  many  even 
scholarly  writers  have  done,  to  attempt  to  determine 
the  exact  degree  of  "Messianic  consciousness"  in  the 
mind  of  Jesus,  to  fix  the  time  when  he  first  knew  him- 
self to  be  the  Messiah,  or  to  try  to  show  by  laboured 
arguments  that  he  proposed  to  be  a  different  kind  of 
Messiah  from  the  one  expected  by  the  people.  If  it 
is  possible  to  dismiss  all  prejudices  in  our  study  of  the 
Gospels  we  shall  find  that  the  prospect  of  the  coming  of 
the  Kingdom  of  God  was  too  absorbing,  and  that  Jesus 
was  cast  in  too  grand  a  mould  to  allow  him  to  think  of 
himself  as  a  Messiah,  or  even  to  think  of  himself  at  all. 

Dismissing  from  our  minds  the  worst  of  the  delusions, 
which  have  hidden  away  the  reality  of  Jesus,  we  shall 
fall  the  more  readily  among  those  who  have  "ears  to 
hear"  and,  catching  his  enthusiasm  for  the  Kingdom  of 
God,  entering  into  his  sympathy  with  humanity  in 
distress,  and  sharing  his  hope  of  the  latent  possibilities 
of  manhood,  we  shall  begin  to  lay  hold  of  his  faith  in 
God,  to  develop  his  love  for  man,  and  so,  really  believ- 
ing his  Gospel,  we  shall  expect,  not  soon,  nor  suddenly, 
but  none  the  less  certainly  and  as  the  final  term  in  the 
great  evolutior  of  humanity,  an  ideal  civilisation  under 
which  men  will  be  free  from  ignorance,  poverty,  disease, 
and  crime  and,  under  the  impetus  of  a  sublime  enthusi- 
asm, shall  enrol  ourselves  as  fellow  workers  in  help- 
ing God  to  develop  civilisation  and  so  to  save  the  world. 

LEGENDS   OF   THE   BIRTH 

Luke  i,  it;  Matthew  i,  ii 

Jesus  was  bom  at  Nazareth,  a  small  village  on  the 
western  side  of  the  Lake  of  Galilee. 


Legends  of  the  Birth  43 

This  much  we  know  from  an  account  in  the  original 
Gospel  of  a  visit  which  he  made  there  at  some  time  after 
the  beginning  of  his  public  work.  (Mark  vi,  i .)  "And 
he  cometh  into  his  own  country."  The  people,  aston- 
ished at  his  teaching,  asked,  "Is  not  this  the  carpenter, 
the  son  of  Mary,  and  brother  of  James  and  Joses  and 
Judas  and  Simon?  and  are  not  his  sisters  here  with  us?  " 
to  which  he  replied,  "A  prophet  is  not  without  honour, 
save  in  his  own  coimtry,  and  among  his  own  kin,  and  in 
his  own  house." 

He  was  also  commonly  known  as  Jesus  of  Nazareth, 
as  is  shown  three  times  by  Mark  and  six  times  by  Luke, 
thus  indicating,  according  to  the  custom  of  his  age  and 
country,  that  Nazareth  was  the  place  of  his  birth  and 
not  simply  that  of  his  abode. 

Yet,  notwithstanding  this  simple  and  evident  fact, 
the  belief  became  established  towards  the  close  of  the 
first  century,  about  a  generation  after  Mark  wrote  his 
Gospel,  that  he  was  born  in  Bethlehem. 

This  strange  perversion  of  an  historical  fact  was  due 
to  the  belief  of  the  Jewish  Christians  that  he  was  the 
Messiah,  and  all  their  efforts  from  the  earliest  days  were 
directed  to  the  winning  of  converts  to  this  belief.  They 
soon  found  it  necessary  to  meet  two  requirements 
among  the  popular  notions  concerning  a  Messiah,  by 
showing  that  Jesus  was  really  a  descendant  of  David 
and  that  he  was  bom  in  Bethlehem.  At  first,  however, 
they  were  content  with  quite  a  different  explanation 
as  to  how  he  came  to  be  a  Messiah,  saying  that  God 
had  anointed  him  with  the  Holy  Ghost  at  the  time  of 
his  baptism.  This  was  the  popular  explanation  when 
Mark  wrote  his  Gospel,  about  67  a.d.  Between  this 
date  and  the  end  of  the  century  the  Christians  found 
it  necessary  to  supplement  this  explanation  by  such  a 


44  The  Historic  Jesus 

showing  as  to  descent  and  place  of  birth  as  would 
satisfy  the  demands  of  a  greater  number  of  the  Jewish 
people. 

For  this  purpose  they  began  to  construct  genealogical 
lists.  Two  of  them  have  come  down  to  us  in  the  Gos- 
pels which  bear  the  names  of  Luke  and  Matthew.  The 
two  lists  do  not  agree,  even  as  to  the  father  of  Joseph, 
and  yet  they  must  have  been  well  received  by  many  of 
the  Jewish  people,  for  the  authors  of  these  Gospels  did 
not  venture  to  omit  them,  even  though  a  later  theory 
as  to  the  descent  of  Jesus  had  made  them  irrelevant 
and  absurd.  Matthew,  who  seems  to  have  been  much 
impressed  with  the  Babylonian  theory  of  numbers, 
imagined  that  history  was  dominated  by  it  and  that 
there  must  have  been  three  sets  of  fourteen  generations 
each  from  Abraham  to  Jesus;  but,  in  order  to  make  his 
theory  fit  the  facts,  he  found  it  necessary,  in  his  second 
group,  to  omit  four  kings.  Notwithstanding  the 
ingenuity  that  was  exercised  in  constructing  these  lists, 
we  are  surprised  upon  examining  them  to  find  that  they 
do  not  show  a  descent  of  Jesus  from  David  after  all, 
since  Luke  says  that  Joseph  was  only  "supposed "  to  be 
his  father,  and  Matthew  says  distinctly  that  he  was 
bom  before  the  marriage,  while  his  mother  was  simply 
betrothed  to  Joseph. 

This  is  most  extraordinary,  since  it  virtually  sets 
aside  one  of  the  beliefs  dearest  of  all  to  the  Jewish  heart, 
and  does  it  in  favour  of  a  totally  new  belief  in  harmony 
with  pagan  ideas  according  to  which  Jesus  is  no  longer 
a  Jewish  Messiah  and  no  longer  a  claimant  to  Jewish 
sovereignty  by  descent  from  David,  but  has  become, 
in  accordance  with  many  pagan  analogies,  a  real  Son 
of  God  by  a  human  mother.  The  universality  of  the 
belief  in  a  Son  of  God  bom  of  a  virgin  is  one  of  the  most 


Legends  of  the  Birth  45 

extraordinary  phenomena  of  history.  We  find  it  in 
China  more  than  five  thousand  years  ago,  where  the 
story  is  told  of  the  Emperor  Fo-Hi.  More  famiHar  are 
the  narratives  in  India,  where  vast  populations  have 
believed  for  more  than  twenty-five  centuries  that 
Krishna,  Buddha,  and  Salivahana  were  Sons  of  God 
by  virgin  mothers.  In  Egypt  it  was  Horus  and  Ra  and 
along  line  of  kings;  in  Persia,  Zoroaster.  Among  the 
Greeks  and  Romans  it  was  taught  that  Hercules  was 
the  son  of  Jupiter  and  Alcmene,  Bacchus  of  Jupiter  and 
Semele,  Perseus  of  Jupiter  and  Danae,  Mercury  of 
Jupiter  and  Maia,  Apollo  of  Jupiter  and  Latona ;  while 
in  more  recent  times,  Alexander  the  Great  was  doubly 
honoured,  being  known  at  home  as  the  son  of  Jupiter 
and  Olympias  and,  after  the  conquest  of  Egypt,  signing 
himself,  in  obedience  to  an  "Oracle,"  Alexander,  son 
of  Jupiter  Ammon.  Plato,  bom  at  Athens  in  the  year 
429  B.C.,  was  believed  by  his  pupils  to  have  been  the 
son  of  Apollo  and  Perictione,  and  it  was  related  by  them 
that  Ariston,  to  whom  his  mother  was  betrothed,  was 
warned  by  Apollo  in  a  dream  that  he  was  the  father  of 
the  expected  child. 

Such  being  the  universal  belief  of  the  pagan  world, 
it  was  impossible  that  pagans  should  construe  the 
expression  "Son  of  God"  in  any  but  the  familiar  way. 
One  would  think  that,  when  this  new  belief  found 
expression  in  a  written  Gospel,  the  author  would  have 
omitted  the  genealogical  lists  as  irrelevant  and  of  no 
further  use,  but  they  were  already  too  strongly  rooted 
in  the  hearts  of  the  Jewish  Christians  to  be  suppressed. 

Luke's  Gospel  did  not  originally  contain  the  new 
theory,  but  a  rather  unsuccessful  attempt  was  made  by 
some  later  editor  to  make  it  conform  to  it.  In  chapter 
iii,  verse   23,    the   words   "as   was   supposed"    were 


46  The  Historic  Jesus 

inserted,  making  the  passage  read  "Jesus  being  the 
son,  'as  was  supposed,'  of  Joseph."  Luke  was  cer- 
tainly too  able  and  intelligent  a  writer  to  have  copied 
a  genealogical  list  and  to  have  prefaced  it  by  saying 
that  it  was  really  of  no  value,  because  his  hero  was  not 
the  son  of  his  father  after  all.  On  the  contrary,  he 
took  the  genealogy  seriously,  because  he  considered 
the  supposed  descent  from  David  a  matter  of  import- 
ance. These  words  were  therefore  a  later  interpola- 
tion, as  were  also  the  34th  and  35th  verses  of  the  first 
chapter,  as  we  shall  see  later.  Omitting  these  passages, 
there  is  nothing  relating  to  a  belief  in  a  supernatural 
birth  of  Jesus  in  Luke's  Gospel.  This  belief  was 
entirely  a  matter  of  the  second  century  and  was  first 
recorded  in  Matthew's  Gospel  amended  and  re-edited 
about  the  year  120  a.d.  But,  as  we  have  seen,  there 
was  probably  an  earlier  edition  of  Matthew's  Gospel, 
dating  from  about  the  year  75  a.d.,  which  did  not 
contain  this  new  belief.  In  chapter  i,  verse  16,  we 
read,  "and  Jacob  begat  Joseph,  the  husband  of 
Mary,  of  whom  was  born  Jesus,  who  is  called  Christ." 
Certain  manuscripts,  however,  record  what  was  appar- 
ently an  earlier  reading:  "Joseph,  to  whom  the  Virgin 
Mary  was  betrothed,  begat  Jesus  Christ."  It  is  evident 
that  the  new  theory  had  a  long  struggle  to  gain  accept- 
ance, and  that  it  could  not  suppress  the  older  Jewish 
Christian  beliefs  is  shown  by  the  effort  which  both 
Luke  and  Matthew  make  to  prove  that  Jesus  was  bom 
in  Bethlehem,  which  would  have  been  a  matter  of 
no  importance  except  in  connection  with  the  supposed 
descent  from  David. 

Matthew  shows,  ii,  6,  the  origin  of  the  popular 
delusion  that  the  Messiah  was  to  be  born  in  Bethlehem. 
A  passage  in  the  Book  of  the  Prophet  Micah,  v,  2, 


Legends  of  the  Birth  47 

seemed  to  give  definite  information  upon  the  subject. 
There  they  read,  "But  thou,  Bethlehem  Ephratah, 
though  thou  be  Httle  among  the  thousands  of  Judah, 
yet  out  of  thee  will  he  come  forth  unto  me  that  is  to 
be  ruler  in  Israel ;  whose  goings  forth  have  been  from 
of  old,  from  everlasting."  If  they  had  read  a  little 
farther  in  the  same  chapter,  they  would  have  found  the 
words,  "And  this  man  will  be  the  peace,  when  the 
Assyrian  shall  come  into  the  land."  In  other  words, 
the  prophet  promised  a  deliverer  from  the  threatened 
invasion  of  the  Assyrians.  He  was  not  thinking  of  a 
Messiah  seven  hundred  years  after  his  time;  but,  after 
the  Messianic  idea  had  taken  hold  of  the  Jewish  imagi- 
nation, the  pernicious  habit  had  grown  up  of  taking 
isolated  passages  of  the  older  Scriptures  away  from 
their  context  and  reading  into  them  fictitious  interpre- 
tations. This  passage,  flagrantly  misinterpreted,  suf- 
ficed to  establish  the  general  belief  that  the  Messiah 
must  be  bom  in  Bethlehem.  The  Christians  found  it 
necessary,  therefore,  in  support  of  their  claim  that 
Jesus  was  the  Messiah,  to  show  that  he  was  born  in 
Bethlehem,  which  was  not  at  first  an  easy  thing  to  do, 
because  all  Jewish  Christians  of  the  first  and  most  of 
those  of  the  second  generation  knew  perfectly  well  that 
he  was  bom  at  Nazareth.  Time,  however,  gradually 
effaced  the  memory  of  facts,  and  Luke,  writing  about 
the  close  of  the  century,  thought  that  he  had  discovered 
a  very  happy  explanation  to  account  for  the  birth  of 
Jesus  at  Bethlehem,  although  the  home  of  his  parents 
was  Nazareth.  He  says  that  it  was  due  to  the  taking 
of  the  census  under  Quirinus.  In  the  second  chapter  we 
read:  " There  went  out  a  decree  from  Caesar  Augustus 
that  all  the  world  should  be  enrolled.  .  .  .  And  Joseph 
also  went  up  from  GaUlee,  out  of  the  city  of  Nazareth, 


48  The  Historic  Jesus 

into  Judaea,  to  the  city  of  David,  which  is  called  Bethle- 
hem, because  he  was  of  the  house  and  family  of  David, 
to  enrol  himself  with  Mary,  who  was  betrothed  to  him, 
being  great  with  child.  And  it  came  to  pass,  while 
they  were  there,  the  days  were  fulfilled  that  she  should 
be  delivered.  And  she  brought  forth  her  first-bom 
son."  This  seems  quite  plausible,  so  long  as  one  is 
ignorant  of  history  and  unacquainted  with  Roman 
administrative  methods,  but,  when  examined  by  the 
light  of  facts,  it  is  foiuid  to  be  a  tissue  of  inaccuracies. 
Luke  does  not  say  that  Herod  was  alive  when  Jesus 
was  born,  while  Matthew  distinctly  says  that  he  was 
alive  at  the  time. 

Herod  died  in  the  year  4  B.C.,  after  which  Archelaus 
was  king  until  6  A.D.,  when  he  was  deposed,  and  Judaea 
and  Samaria  made  subordinate  to  the  province  of 
Syria.  It  was  then  that  a  census  was  taken  under 
Quirinus,  so  there  is  a  discrepancy  of  ten  years  in  the 
dates,  while  Luke  makes  it  quite  impossible  that  Jesus 
should  have  been  bom  at  the  time  of  the  census,  since 
he  says,  iii,  23,  that  he  was  "about  thirty  years  of 
age"  when  he  began  to  teach,  which  was  after  the 
fifteenth  year  of  Tiberius  Caesar;  whereas,  had  he  been 
bom  at  the  time  of  the  census,  he  could  not  have  been 
more  than  twenty-two  at  that  time.  The  census- 
taking  could  therefore  not  account  for  the  presence  of 
Joseph  and  Mary  at  Bethlehem.  But,  even  if  Luke  had 
been  right  as  to  the  date  and  the  census  had  occurred 
ten  years  earlier  than  it  did,  there  was  nothing  in  the 
taking  of  a  census  in  Judaea  to  make  the  supposed 
journey  of  Joseph  necessary.  Judaea  and  Samaria  were 
annexed  to  the  province  of  Syria,  but  not  Galilee, 
which  was  still  a  semi-independent  tetrarchy,  and  there 
was  no  decree  "  that  all  the  world  should  be  taxed," 


Legends  of  the  Birth  49 

but  only  that  the  census  should  be  taken  in  the  newly- 
annexed  countries.  And  if,  furthermore,  the  census 
had  affected  Galilee,  the  Roman  Government  enrolled 
people  where  they  hved,  not  where  their  ancestors  might 
be  supposed  to  have  hved  a  thousand  years  before. 
Such  an  undertaking  would  have  been  the  source  of 
hopeless  confusion.  Even  if  Galilee  had  been  annexed 
to  Syria,  there  would  have  been  no  reason  on  account 
of  a  census  for  Joseph's  taking  a  journey  to  Bethlehem, 
and,  had  such  a  thing  been  possible,  there  was  not  the 
sHghtest  shadow  of  a  reason  why  he  should  take  his 
wife,  or  the  maid  to  whom  he  was  betrothed,  since  the 
Roman  Government  taxed  men,  not  women,  while  to 
require  a  woman  to  take  the  long  and  tedious  journey 
from  Nazareth  to  Bethlehem  in  Mary's  reported  con- 
dition would  have  been  both  cruel  and  dangerous. 

Thus  Luke's  story  of  the  census  to  account  for  the 
birth  of  Jesus  in  Bethlehem  breaks  down  entirely. 
Matthew  tells  a  totally  different  story.  By  the  time 
of  the  final  editing  of  his  Gospel  the  facts  had  been 
entirely  obHterated,  so  that,  instead  of  attempting  to 
explain  how  Joseph  and  Mary  happened  to  be  at 
Bethlehem,  he  undertakes  to  show  how  they  happened 
to  remove  to  Nazareth.  It  had  come  to  be  taken  as 
a  matter  of  course  that  Joseph  and  Mary  had  always 
hved  at  Bethlehem  and  that,  naturally,  Jesus  was  born 
there.  According  to  the  legends  which  he  gives,  how- 
ever, it  became  dangerous  soon  after  the  birth  to 
remain  there,  because  Herod  had  proposed  to  kill  all 
the  children  of  a  certain  age.  To  escape  the  threatened 
danger,  an  angel  directed  Joseph  to  take  the  young  child 
and  his  mother  and  flee  into  Egypt,  while,  on  his  return, 
being  afraid  of  Archelaus,  he  was  directed  in  a  dream 
to  go  to  Nazareth.     But  of  this  later.     It  is  entirely 


50  The  Historic  Jesus 

opposed  to  Luke's  account,  which  knows  of  no  hostility 
of  Herod,  nor  of  any  flight  into  Egypt,  but  has  the 
child  "  presented  "  in  the  temple,  which  was  not  a  Jewish 
custom,  after  which  his  parents  "returned  into  Galilee 
to  their  own  city  Nazareth." 

THE  LEGENDS  IN  LUKE'S  GOSPEL 

To  the  literary  and  poetic  genius  of  Luke,  on  the 
basis  of  popular  legends,  are  due  the  contents  of  the 
two  chapters  which  have  charmed  the  Christian  world 
for  eighteen  centuries.  The  multitude,  which  is  not 
made  up  of  poets,  has  always  taken  these  matters 
seriously,  finding  in  them  evidence  in  favour  of  some 
astonishing  dogmas  and  often  imagining  them  of  more 
importance  than  the  spiritual  teaching  of  Jesus;  but, 
to-day,  in  recognising  their  legendary  origin  and  poetic 
drapery,  we  not  only  do  no  violence  either  to  religion, 
or  to  Scripture,  but  assist  in  removing  an  obstacle  to 
religion  by  serving  the  cause  of  truth.  The  legends 
of  John  the  Baptist  were  made  the  pedestal  on  which  to 
rear  the  stupendous  superstructure  of  the  legends  of  the 
birth  of  Jesus.  Apart  from  the  imagination  of  Luke 
there  is  not  the  slightest  ground  for  supposing  that 
Jesus  was  in  any  way  related  to  John.  The  latter 
belonged  to  a  Judaean  family,  possibly  of  the  priestly 
caste,  while  Jesus  was  of  a  peasant  family  in  Galilee. 
John  the  Baptist  is  said  to  have  begun  his  prenatal 
career  by  being  a  miraculous  child,  the  material  for 
the  story  being  abundantly  supplied  in  the  ancient 
legends  of  Isaac,  Samson,  and  Samuel.  Gen.  xviii,  1 1 ; 
xvi,  II,  17,  19.     Judges  xiii,  4,  7,  14. 

The  Pharisees  and  the  common  people  under  their 
control  had  long  since  adopted  the  Persian  beliefs  con- 


Legends  of  the  Birth  51 

cerning  angels  and  imagined  them  to  be  supernatural 
agents  in  immediate  contact  with  men,  leaving  God  in 
isolated  majesty  in  the  distant  heavens.  It  would  seem 
to  them,  therefore,  a  perfectly  natural  thing  that  Ga- 
briel, or  some  other  angel,  should  bring  a  message  from 
God.  Christendom  has  removed  God  still  farther  from 
men  by  introducing  the  Saints  as  an  additional  order 
of  intermediaries.  In  these  legends  it  was  Gabriel 
who  announced  the  birth  of  John  and  afterwards  of 
Jesus.  Concerning  the  latter  we  read,  i,  26  ff. :  "Now 
in  the  sixth  month  the  angel  Gabriel  was  sent  from  God 
unto  a  city  of  Galilee,  named  Nazareth,  to  a  virgin 
betrothed  to  a  man  whose  name  was  Joseph,  of  the 
house  of  David;  and  the  virgin's  name  was  Mary. 
And  he  came  in  unto  her  and  said,  Hail,  thou  that  art 
highly  favoured,  the  Lord  is  with  thee.  But  she  was 
greatly  troubled  at  the  saying,  and  cast  in  her  mind 
what  manner  of  salutation  this  might  be.  And  the 
angel  said  unto  her.  Fear  not,  Mary ;  for  thou  hast  found 
favour  with  God.  And  behold,  thou  shalt  conceive  in 
thy  womb  and  bring  forth  a  son,  and  shalt  caU  his  name 
Jesus.  He  will  be  great  and  will  be  called  the  Son  of 
the  Most  High;  and  the  Lord  God  will  give  imto  him 
the  throne  of  his  father  David;  and  he  will  reign 
over  the  house  of  Jacob  for  ever ;  and  of  his  kingdom 
there  will  be  no  end  .  .  .  and  behold,  EHzabeth  thy 
kinswoman,  she  also  hath  conceived  a  son  in  her  old 
age ;  and  this  is  the  sixth  month  with  her  that  was  called 
barren.  For  no  word  from  God  will  be  void  of  power." 
It  is  evident  that  verses  34  and  35,  which  have  been 
omitted  in  the  quotation,  break  the  connection,  which 
makes  it  look  very  probable  that  they  are  a  later  inter- 
polation. We  have  already  seen  that  the  words  "as 
was  supposed"  which  rendered   the  genealogical   list 


52  The  Historic  Jesus 

useless  and  absurd  were  inserted  in  the  interest  of  the 
later  theory  of  a  miraculous  birth.  In  the  second  chap- 
ter, in  the  27th  verse,  Luke  speaks  of  "the  parents,"  in 
the  33d  of  "his  father  and  his  mother,"  in  the  41st  of 
"his  parents,"  and  in  the  48th  it  is  "Thy  father  and  I." 
He  also  calls  Jesus,  iv,  22,  "Joseph's  son."  Certainly 
when  he  wrote  this  he  had  no  idea  of  a  miraculous  or 
supernatural  birth,  and  it  is  reasonable  to  suppose  that 
he  wrote  the  first  chapter  at  the  same  time  and  while 
holding  the  same  belief.  We  must  conclude,  therefore, 
that  these  two  verses,  34  and  35,  were  interpolated  at 
the  same  time  as  the  words  "as  was  supposed." 
Omitting  these  passages,  there  is  nothing  in  Luke's 
Gospel  to  suggest  a  miraculous  birth  of  Jesus.  Even 
the  supposed  message  of  Gabriel  contains  nothing  of 
the  sort.  He  is  represented  as  communicating  to  a 
girl  about  to  be  married  the  information  that  she  is  to 
have  a  wonderful  son  who  is  to  receive  the  throne  of 
David  and  to  reign  over  the  house  of  Jacob  for  ever. 
This  imaginary  programme  was  not  carried  out,  but,  at 
the  time  when  this  was  written,  the  Christians  believed 
that  Jesus  would  soon  return  from  his  temporary  retire- 
ment to  heaven  to  reign  in  person  over  the  restored 
kingdom  of  David. 

There  is  not  ^he  slightest  hint  in  this  communication 
that  the  son  is  to  be  born  before  Mary  is  married, 
therefore  the  interpolation  is  very  clumsily  done.  She 
is  not  surprised  nor  impressed  by  the  promised  greatness 
and  brilliant  prospects  of  the  son,  but  is  represented  as 
breaking  in  suddenly  with  the  wholly  irrelevant  and 
unprovoked  question  as  to  how  she  is  to  have  a  son, 
since  she  knows  not  a  man,  whereupon  the  angel  inter- 
rupts his  message  long  enough  to  explain  to  her,  ' '  The 
Holy  Ghost  will  come  upon  thee  and  the  power  of  the 


Legends  of  the  Birth  53 

Most  High  will  overshadow  thee;  wherefore  also  that 
which  is  to  be  bom  will  be  called  Holy,  the  Son  of  God." 
This  brought  the  Gospel  into  harmony  with  pagan  ideas 
concerning  a  Son  of  God  and  we  may  confidently  strike 
out  these  two  verses  as  not  belonging  originally  to  the 
Gospel  of  Luke.  The  material  for  the  supposed  mes- 
sage of  Gabriel  was  found  in  2  Sam.  vii,  13,  and  Is.  ix,  6. 

The  story  of  the  visit  of  Mary  to  Elizabeth  is  intended 
to  show  the  subordinate  position  of  John  with  respect 
to  Jesus  and  illustrates  the  belief  of  the  Jewish  Christ- 
ians towards  the  close  of  the  first  century. 

The  song  which  Luke  assigns  to  Mary  is  a  free  para- 
phrase of  the  anciently  reported  song  of  Hannah  at  the 
prospect  of  the  birth  of  Samuel,  i  Sam.  ii.  It  ex- 
presses the  beliefs  and  feeUngs  of  a  large  party  among 
the  Jewish  Christians  to  whom  Jesus  seemed  to  be  a 
Saviour  of  the  poor  and  needy  from  misery  and  op- 
pression. The  psalm  assigned  to  Zechariah  illustrates 
the  hope  of  multitudes  among  the  pious  common  folk, 
suffering  from  oppression,  that,  being  delivered  from 
their  enemies,  they  might  worship  God  according  to 
the  traditions  of  the  Jewish  people. 

Coming  to  the  birth  of  Jesus,  Luke  draws  an  impres- 
sive contrast  between  the  greatness  of  his  mission  and 
destiny  and  the  humble  conditions  of  his  entrance  into 
the  world.  His  father  and  mother,  arriving  at  Bethle- 
hem, foimd  the  khan  full  of  people  and  every  place 
occupied,  so  that  when  the  child  was  bom  there  was 
nothing  to  do  but  to  lay  him  in  a  manger.  The  picture 
has  always  appealed  to  the  imagination  and  has  been 
abundantly  illustrated  in  art,  and  yet  the  story  has 
nothing  to  do  with  the  teaching  and  influence  of  Jesus, 
nor  will  these  things,  which  are  the  only  matters  of 
importance,  suffer  any  diminution  of  power,  but  will 


54  The  Historic  Jesus 

the  rather  gain,  when  a  more  intelligent  Christian  world 
learns  that  Jesus  was  not  bom  in  Bethlehem  after  all. 

Luke  heightens  the  contrast  by  another  beautiful 
picture  of  the  angel,  the  shepherds,  and  the  heavenly 
host. 

Whereas  the  Saviour  of  the  world  is  bom  without  the 
cognisance  of  mankind,  there  is  great  joy  in  the  heav- 
enly world  and,  while  none  of  the  great  ones  of  the 
world  are  told  of  the  event,  an  angel  brings  word  to 
shepherds  abiding  in  the  field,  keeping  watch  over  their 
flocks  by  night,  telling  them,  "there  is  bom  to  you  this 
day  in  the  city  of  David  a  Saviour,  which  is  Christ,  the 
Lord."  The  account  goes  on  to  say,  "and  suddenly 
there  was  with  the  angel  a  multitude  of  the  heavenly 
host  praising  God  and  saying.  Glory  to  God  in  the 
highest  and  on  earth  peace,  good- will  to  men  "  (or  peace 
to  men  of  good-will).  This  is  a  work  of  the  highest 
poetic  genius  and  one  wonders  what  were  the  underlying 
suggestions  in  the  mind  of  Luke.  The  sixtieth  chapter 
of  the  Book  of  Isaiah,  the  second  Isaiah,  that  enthusi- 
astic prophet  in  Babylon  just  before  the  return  from 
exile,  certainly  supplied  part  of  the  thought  in  his  de- 
scription of  the  glory  of  Jerusalem  as  the  capital  of  a 
tributary  world.  This  chapter  is  now  recognised 
as  a  much  later  forgery.  It  has  been  suggested,  how- 
ever, by  Soltau,  that  many  inscriptions  recently  dis- 
covered in  various  parts  of  Asia  Minor  were  suggestive 
of  some  of  the  thoughts  contained  in  this  remarkable 
story.  These  inscriptions  are  on  tablets  making  an 
official  appointment  of  September  twenty-third,  the 
birthday  of  Augustus,  as  a  day  to  be  observed  through- 
out the  empire.  Two  samples  may  suffice  to  show  the 
nature  of  all. 

"Since  the  Providence,  which  controls  everything  in 


Legends  of  the  Birth  55 

our  life,  has  reawakened  emulation  and  effort  and  given 
our  life  its  noblest  ornament  in  sending  us  Augustus, 
whom  for  the  well-being  of  mankind  it  filled  with  vir- 
tue and  sent  him  to  us  and  our  posterity  as  a  Saviour, 
who  should  make  war  to  cease  and  establish  order,  and, 
since  Caesar  by  his  appearing  has  fulfilled  the  hopes 
which  had  been  built  upon  him,  in  that  he  not  only 
surpassed  all  previous  benefactors,  but  left  no  hope  to 
future  generations  of  surpassing  him,  but  the  birthday 
of  this  god  has  become  the  beginning  of  the  Gospel 
concerning  him  for  the  world,  therefore  ..." 

Another  inscription,  at  Halicarnassus,  speaks  of 
Augustus  as  "the  Saviour  of  the  whole  human  race, 
in  care  for  which  Providence  has  not  only  answered  but 
surpassed  the  prayers  of  all,  since  peace  reigns  on  earth," 
etc. 

These  tablets  were  erected  during  the  years  between 
2  B.  c.  and  14  A.  D.,  and  if  Luke  had  not  actually 
seen  any  of  them,  the  reasons  which  they  give  for  cele- 
brating the  birthday  of  Augustus  represent,  neverthe- 
less, the  consensus  of  feeling  throughout  the  empire 
at  the  time  when  he  wrote.  With  the  advent  of  Au- 
gustus the  long  period  of  devastating  wars  had  ceased, 
a  new  era  of  good- will  among  men  had  dawned.  He 
was  commonly  spoken  of  as  the  Saviour  of  the  world, 
while  it  was  reported  and  believed  that  he  was  the  son 
of  a  god,  his  mother  having  conceived  him  directly 
from  Apollo,  who  visited  her  in  the  form  of  a  serpent 
while  asleep  at  night  in  his  temple.  The  universality 
of  such  beliefs  was  afterwards  used  as  an  argument  by 
Origen  for  persuading  people  to  accept  the  account  of 
the  miraculous  birth  of  Jesus. 

It  is  to  be  noted  that  the  statement  in  the  interpolated 
verses,  34  and  35  of  chapter  i,  never  could  have  origi- 


56  The  Historic  Jesus 

nated  in  Palestine,  for  no  one  accustomed  to  speak 
Aramaic,  or  brought  up  in  the  atmosphere  of  Hebrew 
thought,  could  have  written,  "The  Holy  Ghost  will 
come  upon  thee  and  the  power  of  the  Highest  will  over- 
shadow thee,"  since  ghost  or  spirit  in  Hebrew  is 
feminine,  and  never  could  have  been  thought  of  as  the 
father  of  Jesus.  The  Gospel  of  the  Hebrews  speaks  of 
the  Holy  Ghost  as  his  mother.  This  idea,  therefore, 
of  the  Holy  Ghost  as  the  father  of  Jesus  is  purely  of 
pagan  origin.  Although  the  Holy  Ghost  is  of  the  neuter 
gender  in  Greek,  indicating  an  influence  and  not  a 
person,  it  is  identified  in  this  passage  with  the  "Power 
of  the  Highest,"  which  is  masculine. 

Luke  relates  further  that  the  shepherds  went  in  haste 
to  Bethlehem  in  search  of  the  child  and,  having  found 
him,  told  his  astonished  parents  of  their  remarkable 
experience.  Then,  in  due  course  of  time,  the  child  was 
presented  in  the  temple  at  Jerusalem,  where  Simeon  and 
Anna  prophesy  wonderful  things.  These  are  popular 
legends,  which  had  circulated  for  centimes  among  the 
people  of  Western  Asia  and  were  rescued  and  put  into 
poetic  form  by  the  genius  of  Luke.  They  are  identical, 
almost  word  for  word  with  the  stories,  which  had  been 
current  for  six  hundred  years  concerning  the  birth  of 
Buddha  and,  although  no  one  has  been  bold  enough  to 
say  that  the  Christians  unconsciously  absorbed  the 
Buddhist  legends  and  applied  them  to  Jesus,  yet  the 
astonishing  similarity  of  the  two  is  one  of  the  incon- 
trovertible facts  of  history.  There  was  no  Jewish  law 
requiring  the  "presentation"  of  children  in  the  temple. 
It  was  the  custom  in  India,  not  in  Judaea.  Originally 
the  first-bom  son  was  sacrificed  to  Jahveh  and  there 
were  frequent  reversions  to  the  ancient  custom  down  to 
the  time  of  the  exile.     After  the  return,  the  new  law  of 


Legends  of  the  Birth  57 

Ezra  recognised  the  lamb  or  pigeons,  which  a  woman 
offered  after  childbirth,  as  substitutes  for  the  sacrifice 
of  the  child,  but  there  was  not  the  slightest  suggestion 
of  "presenting"  the  child.  Either  Luke  did  not  know 
what  the  Jewish  custom  was,  or  he  strained  a  point  to 
bring  in  a  story  of  the  "presentation,"  which  certainly 
makes  it  look  probable  that  the  whole  story  is  but  the 
echo  of  the  older  story  of  the  presentation  of  Buddha 
in  the  temple  of  the  gods,  when  the  statues  even  of 
Indra  and  Brahma  left  their  pedestals  to  greet  in  all 
humility  the  god  of  gods. 

While  the  aged  Asita,  a  monk  from  the  Himalayas, 
weeps  because  he  will  not  live  to  see  the  results  of 
Buddha's  work,  the  aged  Simeon,  in  the  Christian 
legend,  weeps  for  joy,  because  his  eyes  have  seen  the 
Salvation. 

In  summing  up  the  study  of  these  two  chapters  of  the 
Gospel  of  Luke,  we  find  that  their  contents  are  entirely 
contrary  to  the  teaching  of  the  earlier  Gospel,  as  repre- 
sented by  the  Gospel  of  Mark,  and  contrary  to  the 
entire  Gospel  of  Luke  outside  these  two  chapters,  that 
they  were  unknown  to  the  first  two  generations  of 
Christians,  and  that  the  idea  of  a  supernatural  birth  is 
entirely  of  pagan  origin.  We  find  that  Jesus  was  born 
at  Nazareth  and  that  the  story  of  a  birth  at  Bethlehem 
was  the  result  of  a  Jewish  delusion.  We  find,  also, 
from  the  teaching  of  Jesus,  that  the  fatherhood  of  God 
is  a  fact  to  be  realised  in  the  spiritual  consciousness  and 
that  a  Son  of  God  by  physical  generation  is  entirely 
destructive  of  his  teaching.  We  find,  as  the  highest 
outcome  of  Christian  belief,  that  "God  is  a  spirit"  and 
that  "those  who  worship  him  must  worship  him  in 
spirit  and  in  truth, "  and  that  we  cannot  even  approach 
this  faith  while  holding  fast  to  pagan  ideas.     We  find 


58  The  Historic  Jesus 

that,  to  be  true  to  the  teaching  of  Jesus  and  to  profit  by 
it,  these  chapters  must  be  excluded  from  any  record 
of  his  life  and  teaching  which  makes  any  pretence  to 
truth. 

THE  LEGENDS  IN  MATTHEW' S  GOSPEL 

We  turn  to  Matthew's  Gospel.  We  have  seen  that 
there  must  have  been  an  earlier  edition,  dating  probably 
from  about  the  year  75  A. d.,  in  which  Joseph  was 
recognised  as  the  father,  i,  16,  for  without  that  the 
genealogical  table  was  an  absurdity.  The  new  theory 
could  not  suppress  the  supposed  genealogy,  which  was 
very  dear  to  the  Jewish  heart.  After  the  establishment 
of  the  new  belief,  the  Christians,  with  charming  naivete, 
undertook  to  hold  both  beliefs  at  the  same  time,  that 
Joseph  was  the  father  of  Jesus  and  yet  he  was  not, 
because  God  was. 

At  the  time  when  the  present  Gospel  of  Matthew  was 
written,  not  much,  if  any,  before  120  a.d.,  the  miracu- 
lous birth  had  come  to  be  taken  as  a  matter  of  course. 
Mary  was  "found  with  child  of  the  Holy  Ghost." 
Joseph  was  much  distressed  at  the  discovery,  but  an 
angel  informed  him  in  a  dream  that  the  Holy  Ghost  was 
the  father  of  th~  child,  notwithstanding  the  fact  that 
the  Holy  Ghost  was  feminine  in  the  language  which 
Joseph  spoke.  The  author  explains  that  the  birth  of 
a  son  of  the  Holy  Ghost  and  the  Virgin  Mary  was  in 
fulfilment  of  a  prophecy,  which  said,  "Behold  the 
virgin  will  be  with  child,  and  will  bring  forth  a  son." 
The  prophecy  referred  to  is  in  the  7th  chapter  of  the 
Book  of  Isaiah,  at  the  14th  verse.  If  any  one  will  take 
the  trouble  to  read  the  chapter,  he  will  find  that  Isaiah 
feels  impelled  to  go  to  Ahaz  with  what  he  believes  to 


Legends  of  the  Birth  59 

be  a  message  from  Jahveh.  He  tells  him  not  to  fear 
Rezin  of  Damascus  and  Pekah  of  Samaria,  because  both 
Damascus  and  Samaria  are  to  be  destroyed  and  that 
Jahveh  will  give  him  a  sign  that  this  is  a  true  prophecy. 
Ahaz  declines  to  doubt  the  word,  but  Isaiah  declares 
that  Jahveh  will  give  him  a  sign,  nevertheless.  A  young 
woman  will  conceive  and  have  a  son  and  will  call  his 
name  Immanuel  and,  before  the  son  is  old  enough  to 
know  the  difference  between  good  and  evil,  Damascus 
and  Samaria  will  be  forsaken  by  both  of  their  kings. 
The  prophecy  was  therefore  to  be  fulfilled  within  five  or 
six  years,  and  nothing  but  the  most  extreme  insanity  of 
dogmatism  could  imagine  it  to  refer  to  the  birth  of  a 
child  seven  and  a  half  centuries  later. 

The  absurd  use  of  it  by  the  Christians  in  the  early 
part  of  the  second  century  was  due  to  the  fact  that  none 
of  them  knew  Hebrew,  but  that  such  as  could  read, 
and  especially  the  multitude  of  Jews  living  in  Greek- 
speaking  lands,  were  dependent  upon  the  Greek  trans- 
lation of  the  Scriptures,  known  as  the  Septuagint. 
The  Hebrew  word  almak,  which  Isaiah  used,  signifies 
a  young  woman,  without  reference  to  whether  she 
is  married  or  not.  The  sign  which  Isaiah  proposed 
to  Ahaz  in  attestation  of  his  prophecy  was  not  that  a 
girl  would  become  the  mother  of  a  fatherless  child,  but 
that,  before  a  child  soon  to  be  bom  was  old  enough  to 
know  right  from  wrong,  the  enemies  which  threatened 
Judah  would  be  overthrown. 

When,  however,  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  were  trans- 
lated into  Greek,  the  translators  found  no  single  Greek 
word,  as  there  is  none  in  English,  corresponding  to  the 
Hebrew  almah.  If  they  had  been  careful  scholars, 
they  would  have  translated  it  "a  young  woman,"  but 
they  were  not  so  careful  and  they  unfortunately  used 


6o  The  Historic  Jesus 

the  word  parthenos,  which  means ' '  virgin. ' '  Had  Isaiah 
meant  virgin,  he  would  have  written  bethulah,  not 
almah.  This  blunder  in  translating  has  been  the 
source  of  vast  mischief;  for,  when  the  beUef  in  a 
miraculous  birth  had  become  established,  the  Christ- 
ians eagerly  fell  upon  this  passage  in  the  Greek  trans- 
lation and,  wresting  it  from  its  context,  imagined  that 
the  supernatural  birth  of  Jesus  had  been  a  matter  of 
prophecy  seven  hundred  and  fifty  years  before. 

The  author  takes  it  for  granted  that  Jesus  must  have 
been  bom  in  Bethlehem,  on  account  of  a  passage  in  the 
Book  of  Micah,  v,  2,  which  says  that  the  deliverer  from 
the  Assyrians  would  come  from  the  old  Bethlehemite 
stock.  He  knows  nothing  of  the  shepherds,  the  glory, 
the  heavenly  host,  as  related  by  Luke,  and  yet  builds 
upon  part  of  the  same  6oth  chapter  of  the  Book  of 
Isaiah,  which  had  supplied  so  much  material  to  Luke. 
It  is,  however,  not  the  heavenly  joy  which  impresses 
him,  but  the  picture  of  the  tributary  world,  when  the 
gates  of  Jerusalem  will  be  open  day  and  night  to  enable 
the  kings  of  all  nations  to  come  with  tribute  and  adora- 
tion to  Zion.  In  connection  with  this  fantastic  picture, 
there  was  a  wide-spread  popular  belief  that  the  birth 
of  the  Messiah  would  be  made  known  by  the  appearance 
of  a  new  star,  a  belief  which  may  have  grown  from  the 
ancient  tradition  of  Balaam's  prophecy  of  a  "star  out 
of  Jacob,"  yet  the  notion  was  prevalent  everywhere 
that  the  birth  of  great  men  was  heralded  by  signs  in  the 
heavens.  In  fact,  astrology  was  taken  seriously  every- 
where, a  fact-  due  to  the  far-reaching  influence  of 
Babylon.  At  that  time  its  greatest  adepts  were  the 
Magi,  the  priests  and  worshippers  of  Ormuzd  in  Persia. 
Two  sets  of  ideas  were  working  together  in  the  popular 
mind  among  the  Christians,  the  thought  of  kings  bring- 


Legends  of  the  Birth  6i 

ing  presents,  and  the  thought  of  Persian  astrologers 
discovering  a  star,  which  they  interpreted  to  indicate 
a  remarkable  birth  in  Judaea.  Out  of  the  fusion  of 
these  two  ideas  grew  the  gifts  and  the  Magi.  It  seems 
quite  unnecessary  that  the  Magi,  who  were  supposed 
to  have  come  all  the  way  from  Persia  under  the  guid- 
ance of  a  star,  should  have  had  to  inquire  of  Herod 
where  the  remarkable  child  was  likely  to  be  found, 
because,  immediately  thereafter,  the  star  resumed  its 
journey,  led  them  to  Bethlehem,  and  finally  "stood  over 
where  the  young  child  was."  Herod,  however,  is 
introduced  for  the  sake  of  bringing  in  a  new  version  of 
a  very  ancient  myth,  one  of  the  oldest  in  all  mythology, 
which  told  of  the  danger  which  threatened  the  life  of  the 
new  god,  the  new-bom  sun,  on  the  25th  of  December, 
from  the  dragon,  the  leviathan,  the  old  serpent,  which 
had  held  the  world  enslaved  during  the  preceding 
months  of  cold  and  darkness.  The  myth  is  given  at 
length  in  the  Book  of  Revelation,  chapter  xii.  "And 
a  great  sign  was  seen  in  heaven;  a  woman  arrayed 
with  the  sun,  and  the  moon  under  her  feet,  and 
upon  her  head  a  crown  of  twelve  stars."  Art  has 
long  since  made  us  familiar  with  the  picture  of  the 
Madonna  standing  on  the  moon,  while  not  long  since 
the  whole  Catholic  world  contributed  to  the  purchase 
of  a  halo  of  twelve  stars  in  diamonds  for  a  statue  of  the 
Madonna  in  St.  Peter's  in  Rome.  "And  she  was  with 
child:  and  she  crieth  out,  travailing  in  birth,  and  in 
pain  to  be  delivered,  and  there  was  seen  another  sign 
in  heaven;  and  behold,  a  great  red  dragon,  having  seven 
heads  and  ten  horns,  and  upon  his  heads  seven  diadems, 
and  his  tail  draweth  the  third  part  of  the  stars  of 
heaven,  and  did  cast  them  to  the  earth ;  and  the  dragon 
stood  before  the  woman,  which  was  about  to  be  deliv- 


62  The  Historic  Jesus 

ered,  that,  when  she  was  delivered,  he  might  devour 
her  child,  who  is  to  rule  all  the  nations  with  a  rod  of 
iron;  and  her  child  was  caught  up  unto  God,  and  unto 
his  throne.  And  the  woman  fled  into  the  wilderness, 
where  she  hath  a  place  prepared  of  God,  that  there  they 
may  nourish  her  a  thousand  two  hundred  and  three- 
score days." 

This  is  the  old,  old  story  of  the  conflict  of  Summer  and 
Winter,  Light  and  Darkness.  Among  many  nations, 
through  thousands  of  years,  with  slight  changes  of 
form,  the  same  story  has  been  told.  A  wonderful  child, 
destined  to  great  deeds,  threatened  to  dethrone  the 
reigning  king.  The  latter  was  waiting  to  kill  him  at 
birth,  but  he,  being  rescued,  grew  up  to  do  great  things 
for  the  human  race.  Among  the  Babylonians  the 
struggle  between  Marduk  and  Tiamat  had  been  told 
for  at  least  four  thousand  years,  as  had  also  been 
related  in  Egypt  the  watchfulness  of  Typhon  to  destroy 
the  infant  Horus  at  birth.  The  legend  was  not  carried 
so  far  in  the  case  of  Buddha,  since  Bimbisara,  the  King 
of  Magadha,  rejected  the  advice  to  kill  the  child,  yet 
many  centuries  earlier  the  whole  myth  had  been  related 
of  Krishna.  The  reigning  King,  Khansa,  instructed  his 
messengers  "to  kill  all  the  infants  in  the  neighbouring 
places,"  while  in  the  cave  temple  at  Elephanta  a  great 
relief  represents  a  man  holding  a  drawn  sword  sur- 
rounded by  slaughtered  infant  boys. 

The  same  story  is  included  in  the  myth  of  Abraham, 
whose  Hfe  was  said  to  have  been  in  danger  from  Nimrod, 
who,  to  save  his  life  from  the  expected  "dangerous 
child,"  had  ordered  that  all  women  with  child  should 
be  guarded  with  great  care  and  that  all  children  bom 
of  them  should  be  put  to  death.  Among  the  Greeks 
it  was  Perseus,   Hercules,  ^sculapius,  Bacchus,  and 


Legends  of  the  Birth  63 

others,  who  were  rescued  from  the  danger  which 
threatened  their  birth.  Coming  down  to  historic  times, 
we  are  more  f  amiHar  with  the  stories  of  the  preservation 
and  rescue  of  Sargon  I,  Moses,  Cyrus,  and  Romulus  and 
Remus.  It  is  evident,  therefore,  that,  in  the  Christ- 
ianised form  of  the  most  ancient  myth  in  the  world, 
Herod  is  made  to  do  duty  for  the  old  dragon,  who  would 
destroy  the  new-born  son,  the  Lord  and  Giver  of  life, 
while  the  rescue  of  "the  dangerous  child"  is  said  to 
have  been  made  possible  by  a  flight  into  Egypt,  sug- 
gested to  Joseph  by  an  angel.  The  Jewish  Christians 
thought  that  they  had  good  authority  for  a  sojourn  in 
Egypt,  because  they  found  a  passage  in  the  Book  of 
Hosea,  which  said:  "When  Israel  was  a  child,  then  I 
loved  him  and  called  my  son  out  of  Egypt."  Omitting 
the  first  part  of  the  passage,  the  second  became  at  once 
"Messianic"  and  referred  to  Jesus.  It  was,  therefore, 
perfectly  clear  to  them  that  Jesus  must  have  been  in 
Egypt,  but  dulness  did  not  perish  from  the  earth  in 
early  Christian  days,  for  hundreds  of  Christians  still 
go  to  see  the  tree  at  Matariyeh,  a  few  miles  from  Cairo, 
under  which  the  Holy  Family  "rested"  on  the  occasion 
of  their  "flight  into  Egypt."  Coins  have  been  found 
in  Asia  Minor  representing  the  flight  of  Leto,  the  mother 
of  Apollo,  from  the  dragon  Python,  who  threatened  the 
young  god's  life.  In  the  Christian  form  of  the  legend 
Herod  was  made  to  do  duty  for  the  dragon,  but  his 
supposed  slaughter  of  the  innocents  was  unknown  to 
any  sober  historian  and  was  never  suggested  by  any 
one  but  the  author  of  the  first  Gospel. 

The  quotation  from  the  Book  of  Jeremiah  is  as  unfor- 
tunate as  most  of  the  misinterpreted  and  misapplied 
passages  of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures. 

Matthew  states  that  an  angel  informed  Joseph  in 


64  The  Historic  Jesus 

Egypt  of  the  death  of  Herod  and  told  him  to  return  to 
the  land  of  Israel,  but  that  he  was  afraid  to  do  so  when 
he  heard  that  Archelaus  was  king.  God,  however, 
directed  him  in  a  dream  to  go  to  Galilee  and  he  finally 
settled  at  Nazareth,  in  order,  as  Matthew  says,  to  fulfil 
a  prophecy,  "He  shall  be  called  a  Nazarene."  There 
was  no  such  prophecy.  There  was  a  story  in  the  Book 
of  Judges,  ch.  xiii,  that  Samson's  mother  was  informed 
by  an  angel  that  she  would  have  a  son  and  that  he 
would  be  a  Nazarite.  What  a  Nazarite  is  is  explained 
in  the  sixth  chapter  of  the  Book  of  Numbers,  a  man  who 
turns  monk  for  a  while  and  makes  a  vow  not  to  drink 
wine  or  vinegar,  or  to  eat  grapes,  fresh  or  dried,  or 
grape-skins  or  kernels,  nor  to  cut  his  hair,  nor  to  attend 
the  funeral  of  any  of  his  relations.  It  was  a  piece  of 
hopeless  stupidity  which  led  some  of  the  Christians  to 
imagine  that  because  Nazarite  and  Nazarene  were  alike 
in  the  first  syllable,  therefore  this  supposed  prophecy 
about  Samson  really  referred  to  the  Messiah  and  dis- 
closed the  divine  intention  of  having  Jesus  live  for  a 
while  in  Nazareth. 

This  completes  the  study  of  the  legends  of  the  birth 
of  Jesus.  It  has  been  a  misfortime  of  incalculable 
magnitude  that  they  were  ever  incorporated  in  any  of 
the  Gospels,  for  they  have  hidden  away  the  real  Jesus 
behind  a  veil  oi  the  fantastic  and  the  supernatural, 
borrowed  from  the  superstitions  of  paganism  and, 
rousing  churches  and  nations  to  the  defence  of  abstud 
and  impossible  dogmas,  have  prevented  milHons  of 
people  from  appreciating  the  magnificent  personality 
of  Jesus,  from  emulating  his  courage,  sharing  his  hatred 
of  unreality  in  religion,  acquiring  his  standards,  and 
growing  into  his  faith. 

It  will  inaugurate  a  great  age  for  religion  and  the 


The  Descent  of  Jesus  65 

world,  if  Christendom  shall  ever  be  able  to  cast  off  its 
burden  of  Jewish  delusion  and  pagan  folly  and  learn 
to  believe  and  hope  and  love  in  the  spirit  and  with  the 
enthusiasm  of  Jesus,  no  longer  reading  these  chapters 
in  the  churches,  nor  teaching  their  contents  to  children, 
as  if  they  were  matters  of  history,  but  resting  content 
with  the  facts  as  known  to  the  early  Christians,  that 
Jesus  was  born  at  Nazareth  and  that  his  parents  were 
Joseph  and  Mary ;  for,  when  no  longer  obscured  by  the 
glamour  of  the  supematiu"al,  his  wonderful  spiritual 
consciousness  will  become  a  grander  power  than  ever 
for  the  religious  development  of  the  world. 

THE    DESCENT    OF   JESUS 

Were  the  parents  of  Jesus  Jews?  It  is  commonly  so 
stated  and  believed  and  yet  when  we  consider  the  facts 
it  seems  very  improbable. 

It  is  necessary  to  distinguish  between  adherents  of 
the  Jewish  religion  and  members  of  the  Jewish  race, 
artificially  bred  by  priests  in  and  about  Jerusalem  after 
the  middle  of  the  fifth  century  before  the  Christian 
era,  by  enforcing  the  prohibition  against  marriage  with 
the  members  of  any  other  race. 

The  Hebrews,  who  had  wandered  as  nomad  shep- 
herds into  Palestine  more  than  a  thousand  years  before 
and  had  eventually  conquered  it,  seem  to  have  been 
already  a  mixed  race,  resulting  from  a  fusion  of  Arab 
and  Syrian  stock  in  Padan  Aram,  west  of  Mesopotamia, 
where  they  had  lived  for  an  unknown  number  of 
centuries. 

Coming  into  Palestine,  they  intermarried  freely  with 
the  inhabitants  whom  they  found  there,  chiefly  Hittites 
and   Amorites,   the   latter   an    Indo-European   stock, 


66  The  Historic  Jesus 

adopting  their  civilisation,  customs,  religion,  and  festi- 
vals and  only  very  slowly  substituting  the  worship  of 
Jahveh,  under  the  active  propaganda  of  the  prophets, 
for  that  of  the  original  and  local  Baals,  The  result  of 
this  fusion,  going  on  for  centuries,  was  the  IsraeHtes, 
a  race  of  very  mixed  origin,  which  owed  its  ability  in 
war  and  civil  government,  not  to  the  Hebrew  and 
earlier  Bedouin  stock,  but  to  the  Hittite  and  Amorite 
stock,  which  was  largely  in  the  preponderance,  and  it 
would  be  very  interesting  to  know  whether  the  great 
prophets  of  Israel  did  not  owe  their  intelligence  and 
their  instinctive  protest  against  Semitic  ideas  in  the 
worship  of  God  to  their  foreign  blood,  especially  Amo- 
rite blood. 

In  the  year  721  B.C.  about  eighty  per  cent,  of  the 
population  of  the  Northern  Kingdom  was  driven  into 
captivity  by  the  Assyrians  and  never  heard  of  again. 
In  course  of  time  the  land  was  recolonised  by  people 
drawn  from  various  parts  of  the  Assyrian  Empire, 
but  there  was  no  new  infusion  of  Hebrew  stock.  The 
people  were  so  entirely  un-Israelitish  and  un-Hebrew 
that  Galilee,  at  least,  came  to  be  known  as  Galilee  of 
the  Gentiles. 

After  the  destruction  of  the  Northern  Kingdom,  the 
priests  in  the  Httle  Kingdom  of  Judah  conceived  the 
extraordinary  id'^a  of  making  an  artificial  race  entirely 
subservient  to  them,  by  breeding  out  all  the  elements 
of  foreign  stock  which  tended  to  enlarge  the  view  of 
life  and  to  bring  the  people  into  sympathy  with  the 
civilisation  and  progress  of  the  world. 

During  the  first  hundred  years  they  had  very  little 
success,  but  a  hundred  years  after  the  return  from 
Babylon,  Ezra  with  the  help  of  Nehemiah  was  able 
to  enforce  the  prohibition  against  mixed  marriages  and 


The  Descent  of  Jesus  67 

from  that  time  on  the  priests  were  able  to  raise — ^Jews. 

Now  it  so  happened  that  the  mixed  population  in 
the  North,  while  in  no  way  related  to  the  Jewish  race, 
was  nevertheless  devoted  to  the  Jewish  rehgion,  and 
this  had  come  about  in  a  very  curious  and  interesting 
manner. 

After  the  Assyrians  had  carried  away  the  population 
and  before  the  new  inhabitants  arrived,  the  wild  ani- 
mals had  increased  very  rapidly  and  the  newcomers 
foimd  themselves  in  constant  danger  from  lions.  They 
had  brought  their  gods  with  them,  Succoth-benoth, 
Nergal,  Ashima,  Nibhaz,  Tartak,  and  Adrammelech 
(2  Ki.  xvii),  but  these  were  foreign  gods  and  had  each 
his  own  territory.  It  was  necessary  to  placate  the 
god  of  the  land,  but  they  did  not  know  how. 

They  therefore  sent  a  petition  to  the  King  of  Assyria 
to  let  them  have  one  of  the  captive  priests,  and  he  ac- 
cordingly sent  them  a  priest  of  Jahveh,  that  he  might 
persuade  Jahveh  to  restrain  the  lions.  From  this 
beginning  the  people  of  the  North  acquired  in  time  the 
Jewish  rehgion  without  being  of  the  Jewish  race. 

The  question  as  to  the  parentage  of  Jesus  resolves 
itself  therefore  into  the  question  of  a  migration  of  Jews 
into  GaHlee  after  the  fifth  century  B.C.  There  was  such 
a  migration,  but,  as  concerns  Gahlee,  it  could  not  have 
been  large. 

As  the  pressure  of  priestly  rule  increased,  the  more 
intelligent  part  of  the  population,  those  in  whom  some 
of  the  better  stock  still  siu-vived,  would  escape  into 
the  less  irksome  life  away  from  Jerusalem,  but  they 
would  be  attracted  to  the  cities,  not  to  little  farming 
commimities. 

Such  migration  of  Jews  into  Galilee,  however,  as  did 
occur  was  carefully  weeded  cut  in  the  year  135   B.C., 


68  The  Historic  Jesus 

for  Simon  Maccabaeus,  after  his  victory  over  the 
Syrians,  compelled  all  the  Jews  in  GaHlee  to  return  to 
Jerusalem. 

There  remain,  therefore,  only  135  years  for  the  pos- 
sible wandering  back  of  a  few  Jews  into  Galilee  and  the 
chances  that  the  parents  of  Jesus  were  of  pure  Jewish 
stock  are  reduced  to  a  very  small  fraction. 

It  is  very  much  more  probable  that  there  were  in  his 
ancestry  much  larger  traces  of  Indo-European  stock, 
either  Amorite  or  Greek. 

This,  if  it  could  be  proved,  which,  naturally,  it 
cannot,  would  account  for  some  things  in  what  we 
know  of  him  which  have  never  been  satisfactorily 
explained. 

His  mental  attitude  was  instinctively  anti-Semitic. 
God,  with  him,  was  a  father,  not  a  tyrant,  and  man  a 
son  and  agent,  not  a  slave.  He  was  not  a  fatalist  and 
he  hated  all  phases  of  mechanical  religion.  Righteous- 
ness, with  him,  resulted  from  the  spontaneity  of  good- 
ness and  was  never  a  mere  conformity  to  law.  Jesus 
could  not  have  been  what  he  was,  if  he  had  descended 
from  the  unmixed  Jewish  race. 

The  great  religion,  which  was  the  outcome  of  his 
heart,  never  could  be  imderstood  nor  appreciated  by 
the  Semitic  race,  but,  from  the  beginning,  awoke  sym- 
pathy and  responsive  echoes  from  the  heart  of  the 
Indo-Europeans. 

THE  LEAVEN  OF  THE  PHARISEES 

Jesus  warned  his  friends  to  "Beware  of  the  leaven  of 
the  Pharisees,"  realising  that,  unless  they  could  break 
away  from  the  beliefs,  traditions,  and  customs  under 
which  they  had  grown  up,  they  would  be  unable  to 


The  Leaven  of  the  Pharisees  69 

attain  that  power  of  moral  perception  and  self -guidance 
necessary  for  citizenship  in  the  Kingdom  of  God. 

It  was  impossible  for  them  to  heed  his  advice,  or 
even  to  understand  what  he  meant ;  for  ignorant  men, 
accustomed  to  take  their  beliefs  ready  made,  always 
under  the  control  of  authority  and  in  the  habit  of 
regarding  established  customs  as  part  of  the  natu- 
ral order  of  things,  cannot  escape  from  their  servitude 
and  in  the  dignity  of  a  new-found  manhood  estab- 
lish themselves  as  independent  centres  of  spiritual 
perception  and  moral  power,  letting  the  light  of  the 
larger  possibilities  of  life  shine  among  their  fellow- 
men. 

It  was  inevitable,  therefore,  that  those  who  were 
attached  to  Jesus  and  had  become  enthusiasts  for  the 
belief  that  he  was  the  Messiah  should  simply  add  this 
belief  to  their  existing  stock,  interpreting  him  and  his 
work  in  accordance  with  their  inherited  ideas.  When, 
as  a  result  of  their  zealous  propaganda,  their  new  belief 
was  spread  among  the  people  of  the  Jewish  race  living 
in  the  cities  about  the  Mediterranean  Sea,  and  found 
acceptance  not  only  among  them  but  also  among  many 
of  the  proselytes  from  other  races,  there  went  along 
with  it,  and  apparently  as  a  constituent  part  of  it,  the 
beUefs,  traditions,  and  customs  of  the  Pharisees. 

Thus  it  came  to  pass  that,  as  Christianity  slowly 
emerged  as  a  new  religion  and  finally  broke  away  from 
Judaism,  the  leaven  of  the  Pharisees  had  become  so 
entirely  ingrained  in  the  consciousness  of  its  adherents 
that  it  was  no  longer  possible  to  heed  or  to  follow  the 
warning  of  Jesus.  Even  Paul,  to  whose  remarkable 
teaching  and  efforts  the  separation  was  largely  due, 
let  go  of  only  so  much  of  the  Pharisaic  inheritance  as 
was  incompatible  with  a  world-wide  religion,  circum- 


70  The  Historic  Jesus 

cision,  the  tyranny  of  the  law,  and  race  exclusiveness 
being  the  things  against  which  he  chiefly  contended; 
but  he  kept  the  rest  of  his  Pharisaism  and  prided  him- 
self on  being  a  Pharisee.  He  kept  his  rabbinical  the- 
ology, his  rabbinical  view  of  the  Scriptures  and  the 
rabbinical  mode  of  interpreting  them;  he  retained 
and  developed  his  inherited  ideas  concerning  sin  and 
sacrifice  and  accepted  as  true  many  of  the  strange 
apocalyptic  delusions  of  his  day. 

It  is  necessary  to  understand  what  some  of  the  more 
prominent  features  of  Pharisaism  were  and  to  realise 
that  it  was  a  comparatively  new  thing,  but  little  more 
than  a  hundred  years  old  at  the  time  of  Jesus;  for 
the  Pharisees  had  come  into  prominence  as  the  reac- 
tionary party  in  the  time  of  the  Alaccabees  and,  acquir- 
ing control  under  Alexandra,  who  became  sole  ruler 
in  the  year  78  B.C.,  had  proceeded  to  intensify  the 
distinctive  features  of  Judaism  and  to  raise  such  a  hedge 
about  the  observance  of  the  law  as  should  make  any 
future  adjustment  of  relations  with  the  rest  of  the 
world  impossible. 

The  Semitic  idea  of  God  contained  but  two  features, 
arbitrary  will  and  absolute  power.  He  did  whatever 
he  pleased,  without  any  considerations  of  reason,  jus- 
tice, or  mercy,  and  man  was  simply  as  clay  in  the  hands 
of  a  potter. 

Although  this  idea  had  led  through  the  intensity  of 
race  conceit  to  a  sort  of  monolatry,  which  was  the 
•  nearest  approach  to  monotheism  of  which  the  Semitic 
mind  was  capable,  the  Pharisees,  under  the  tutelage  of 
the  scribes,  had  removed  this  God  ever  farther  from  the 
world  and  men,  until  he  had  become  distant,  isolated, 
and  unapproachable,  leaving  an  immeasurable  void, 
to  be  filled  from  extra-Jewish  sources  with  such  beings 


The  Leaven  of  the  Pharisees  71 

as  popular  legends,  the  debris  of  old  religions,  or  phil- 
osophical speculation  might  supply. 

This  process  of  filling  the  void  between  God  and  man 
was  already  well  established  in  the  time  of  Jesus,  among 
the  learned  by  personifications  of  "Wisdom,"  "The 
Word,"  "The  Glory,"  etc.,  among  the  common  people 
by  gradations  of  angels  and  by  a  Devil  and  his  demons, 
derived  from  Persian  sources. 

The  Pharisees,  too,  were  zealous  exponents  and 
defenders  of  the  law,  as  it  had  been  invented  by  the 
priests  and  taught  and  applied  by  the  scribes.  It  had 
been  expanded  into  six  hundred  and  thirteen  distinct 
rules,  which  penetrated  to  the  most  minute  acts  of  daily 
life,  and  these  had  been  developed  by  a  weary  line  of 
comments  and  decisions,  complications  and  subtleties, 
into  a  confused  system,  which  none  but  the  learned 
could  understand  and  none  but  the  people  of  leisure 
could  attempt  to  follow.  What  was  supposed  to  be 
righteousness  was  a  mere  external  conformity,  without 
vitality,  spontaneity,  or  moral  power.  Since  it  was 
dependent  upon  legal  training,  those  who  knew  not  the 
law  were  "ciu-sed,"  while  the  very  men  who  deceived, 
bullied,  and  despised  the  common  people  were  able  by 
tricks  of  casuistry  to  evade  its  most  inconvenient  pro- 
visions for  themselves.  It  was  the  hollowness  and 
insincerity,  the  extemalism  and  hard,  narrow  legalism 
induced  by  this  pernicious  system  which  brought  down 
upon  them  the  scorn  and  wrath  of  Jesus,  who  denounced 
them  as  "children  of  Hell."  (Matt,  xxiii,  15.) 
Yet  his  own  disciples  were  brought  up  under  this  system 
and,  although  they  caught  some  of  his  larger,  sweeter 
spirit,  they  nevertheless  retained  and  transmitted  to 
the  Christian  world  the  Pharisaic  attitude,  which  inter- 
preted righteousness  as  a  keeping  of  rules,  and  so  made 


72  The  Historic  Jesus 

inevitable  the  conflict  of  the  centuries  between  the  let- 
ter that  killeth  and  the  spirit  that  giveth  Ufe.  The 
Pharisees,  also,  were  the  earnest  disseminators  of  the 
extraordinary  notions  concerning  the  Hebrew  Script- 
ures which  had  been  invented  by  the  priests  and  scribes, 
and  developed  by  them  during  the  four  or  five  centuries 
before  the  time  of  Jesus.  The  canon  of  Scriptures  was 
not  quite  complete  in  his  day,  but,  as  it  had  approached 
completion,  the  scribes  had  taught  that  God  was  the 
author  of  the  Scriptures  and  was  directly  responsible 
for  every  sentence,  word,  and  letter  which  they  con- 
tained and  that  they  were,  therefore,  absolutely,  infal- 
libly correct,  not  only  in  their  literal  meaning,  but  also 
in  as  many  allegorical,  mystical,  and  other  fantastic 
interpretations  as  an  uncontrolled  imagination  could 
wring  from  them. 

The  prophets  before  the  exile  had  protested  grandly 
against  the  whole  priestly  system,  but  the  majority  of 
the  people  could  not  read.  Only  those  in  control  of  the 
situation  could  read  Hebrew  at  all  and  we  may  be  per- 
fectly sure  that  when  the  Scriptures  were  read  in  the 
synagogues  the  protests  of  Amos,  Hosea,  Isaiah,  and 
Micah  were  carefully  omitted. 

The  rabbinical  view  of  the  Scriptures,  diligently 
disseminated  by  the  Pharisees,  was  held  by  the  dis- 
ciples of  Jesus  and  was  received  from  them  without 
question  by  the  vast  populations  of  Europe,  as  they 
accepted  the  Christian  religion,  even  to  the  ficti- 
tious authorship,  as  held  by  the  scribes,  who  taught 
that  Moses  wrote  the  Pentateuch,  David  the  Psalms, 
and  the  several  prophets  all  of  the  writings  which  bear 
their  names. 

Jesus  had  a  wonderful  intuition  when  he  reaHsed  the 
danger,  and  it  must  be  evident  that  any  intelligent 


The  Leaven  of  the  Pharisees  73 

understanding  of  his  attitude  and  teaching  depends 
upon  the  elimination  from  such  records  of  his  Hfe  as 
have  survived  of  all  vestiges  of  the  leaven  of  the  Phari- 
sees, that,  recognising  the  nature  and  force  of  the  hos- 
tility which  temporarily  defeated  his  work  and  finally 
accomplished  his  death,  we  may  both  rescue  him  from 
his  enemies  and  his  religion  from  that  persistent  domin- 
ion of  the  leaven  of  the  Pharisees  which  still  obscures 
its  light  and  still  hinders  its  work,  as  an  inspiration,  an 
enthusiasm,  and  a  joyful  service  for  God  and  humanity 
at  the  present  day. 

It  will  appear  in  the  course  of  our  study  that  the 
leaven  of  the  Pharisees  was  not  the  only  force  which 
obscured  the  religion  of  Jesus  and  hindered  its  beneficent 
work;  for,  in  passing  beyond  the  confines  of  Judasa,  it 
came  into  contact  with  many  of  the  religions  of  the 
pagan  world  and  the  speculative  tendencies  of  Greek 
thought  and  the  same  thing  happened  again  which 
had  taken  place  among  the  Jewish  adherents  of  the 
new  belief.  Men  adjusted  it  to  their  existing  stock  of 
religious  ideas,  beliefs,  and  practices,  so  that,  before 
three  hundred  years  had  passed,  the  new  religion,  known 
as  Christianity,  while  it  preserved  and  transmitted 
the  teaching  of  Jesus,  buried  it  beneath  a  new  edition 
of  the  old  beliefs,  and  practices  of  paganism.  For 
those  who  were  more  intellectual,  speculation  obscured 
the  realities  of  spiritual  perception  and  the  dogmas  of 
theology  usurped  the  place  of  religion,  creating  a  barrier 
to  the  progress  of  the  human  mind  which  only  after  the 
lapse  of  sixteen  centuries  is  beginning  to  show  breaches 
in  the  walls,  but  still  blocks  the  way  for  millions  of  men 
to  the  truth  which  would  make  them  free  and  to  the 
reality  of  a  personal  faith  which  is  in  itself  the  evidence 
of  things  unseen. 


-74  The  Historic  Jesus 

It  is  necessary  to  bear  in  mind  the  meaning  of  that 
great  word  "faith,"  It  is  a  spiritual  perception  and 
force,  the  soul  of  man  exerting  itself  to  lay  hold  of  the 
things  which  are  spiritually  discerned,  becoming  con- 
scious of  God  as  Him  "in  whom  we  live  and  move  and 
have  our  being"  and  acquiring  courage  and  power  from 
Him  for  the  work  and  warfare  of  life.  The  multitude, 
ever  careless  in  its  use  of  words,  identifies  faith  with 
credulity,  the  natural  capacity  of  untutored  minds  for 
believing  what  is  incredible,  or  the  acquired  habit  of 
assenting  to  dogmatic  statements  which  it  does  not 
understand,  because  they  are  imposed  by  authority 
and  are  venerable  by  age.  As  a  result  of  this  unfor- 
tunate confusion  of  thought,  diligently  fostered  by  the 
various  ecclesiasticisms,  it  is  quite  customary  to  say 
of  one  who  has  outgrown  the  myths,  legends,  and  fables, 
with  the  scientific  and  historical  blunders  which  were 
taught  him  in  his  childhood  as  an  essential  part  of 
religion,  that  he  has  "lost  his  faith,"  a  statement  which 
is  unjust  to  the  individual  and  false  to  the  facts.  For 
one  who  has  ever  had  any  real  faith  can  no  more  lose 
it  than  he  can  forget  his  mother  tongue,  but  it  grows 
ever  deeper  and  stronger  in  proportion  as  he  leaves 
behind  the  delusions  of  the  darker  ages  of  mankind  and 
presses  forward  ■^owards  the  larger  consciousness  of  a 
son  of  God. 

The  credulous  multitude  has  never  had  any  faith 
and  it  is  the  grand  mission  of  the  Higher  Criticism  to 
take  up  and  carry  on  the  work  of  Jesus,  emancipating 
them  from  the  control  of  all  external  authorities,  that, 
listening  to  his  appeal  to  the  individual  heart  and  con- 
science, as  it  echoes  across  the  troubled  sea  of  the  inter- 
vening centuries,  "Ye  have  heard  that  it  hath  been 
said  by  them  of  old  time  .  .  .  but  I  say  unto  you," 


The  Leaven  of  the  Pharisees  75 

they  may  feel  within  themselves  the  stirring  of  a  new 
manhood  and,  entering  with  enthusiasm  into  the  dignity 
of  stewardship,  may  help  to  build  among  their  fellow- 
men  the  realised  Kingdom  of  God. 


THE   SYNOPTIC   GOSPELS 

INTRODUCTION 

§§ i-iv 

§  /;  Mark  i,  i-8;  Luke  m,  1-17;  Matt.  Hi,  1-12 

THE  gospel  which  Jesus  preached  was  the  gospel  of 
the  Kingdom  of  God,  the  good  news  that  God 
was  soon  coming  to  establish  his  personal  dominion  in 
a  world  from  which  all  poverty,  suffering,  and  crime  had 
been  eliminated,  in  a  world  where  simple,  honest  folk 
might  live  their  lives  in  peace,  comfort,  and  joy. 

The  gospel  which  Mark  announces  as  his  theme  is 
not  the  same,  but  is  a  gospel  about  Jesus  himself, 
whom  he  calls  Jesus  Christ.  Since  "Christ"  is  the 
shortened  English  form  of  the  Greek  adjective  Christos, 
"anointed,"  which  was  used  as  the  equivalent  of  the 
Hebrew  "Messiah,"  his  purpose  in  writing  is  to  prove 
that  Jesus  is  the  Messiah.  His  work  is,  therefore,  to 
be  apologetic  and  not  simply  historical,  a  fact  which 
needs  to  be  borne  in  mind,  since  actual  facts  cannot 
always  be  identical  with  an  author's  interpretation  of 
them.  It  is  necessary  to  realise  the  existence  of  these 
two  gospels  and  their  relations  to  each  other,  which  is 
that  of  the  egg  to  its  shell.  Jesus  did  not  preach  about 
himself,  but  about  the  Kingdom  of  God,  which  he 
believed  was  soon  coming,  and  about  the  necessary 
fitness  for  citizenship,  when  it  should  come.  The 
friends,  on  the  other  hand,  who  were  sincerely  attached 

76 


The  Synoptic  Gospels  77 

to  him,  began  soon  after  his  death  to  preach  a  totally 
different  gospel  the  burden  of  which  was  that  he  was 
the  Messiah.  They  won  converts  to  this  theory  and 
it  soon  became  part  of  the  shell,  which  has  preserved 
and  transmitted  the  real  gospel  of  Jesus  through  the 
centuries,  the  rest  of  the  shell  being  constructed  of 
pagan  elements,  which  appealed  more  directly  to  the 
pagan  mind. 

While  in  most  Christian  ages  many  a  brave  and  gentle 
soul,  penetrating  the  shell,  has  discovered  the  faith 
and  hope  and  spirit  of  Jesus  as  a  light  and  a  power 
for  all  the  varying  exigencies  of  human  life,  the  miilti- 
tude,  ever  of  duller  mould,  has  always  mistaken  the 
shell  for  the  egg,  and  from  its  many  incongruous  ele- 
ments, gathered  at  random  from  Jewish  and  pagan  soil, 
has  developed  the  rival  ecclesiasticisms,  the  ponderous 
and  discordant  theologies,  together  with  the  wars, 
persecutions,  and  fanaticisms,  which  have  so  often 
disfigured  the  face  of  Christendom  and  have  prevented 
the  gospel  of  Jesus  from  doing  its  beneficent  work 
among  men. 

It  is  the  grand  mission  of  the  Higher  Criticism  to 
break  the  shell  and  so  to  bring  the  actual  gospel  of 
Jesus  into  prominence,  in  place  of  the  theoretical  gos- 
pel about  him  by  which  it  has  been  so  long  obscured. 

The  first  obstacle  to  be  removed  is  the  original  blun- 
der which  made  Jesus  a  Messiah. 

We  find  in  Mark's  Gospel  the  title  "Son  of  God "  also 
applied  to  Jesus,  It  is  possible  that  the  expression 
was  not  used  by  Mark,  but  was  interpolated  by  a  later 
hand,  as  the  words  do  not  exist  in  some  manuscripts. 
However  that  may  be,  the  term  "Son  of  God"  to  the 
Jewish  mind  was  simply  an  equivalent  of  the  term 
"Messiah." 


78  The  Historic  Jesus 

All  Oriental  kings,  Jewish  kings  among  the  rest, 
were  always  called  "Sons  of  God."  Among  the  Jews 
an  expected  descendant  of  David,  who  was  to  restore 
the  ancient  kingdom  and  rule  over  it,  would  naturally 
be  called  a  "Son  of  God." 

Among  the  Greeks,  however,  the  term  meant  some- 
thing totally  different  and  was  taken  literally.  Both 
their  mythology  and  their  fictitious  history  were  full 
of  supposed  actual  sons  of  some  god  by  a  human  mother 
and,  when  they  found  Jesus  called  a  "Son  of  God"  in 
the  Christian  teaching  and  writings,  they  naturally 
supposed  that  he  was  but  a  more  recent  addition  to  their 
long  list  of  gods  and  heroes  who  were  imagined  to  have 
come  into  being  in  the  same  unusual  way.  It  is  quite 
possible,  therefore,  that  these  words  were  added  to 
Mark's  Gospel  at  a  later  date  in  order  to  accommodate 
it  to  pagan  ideas. 

The  Jewish  Christians  preached  about  "Jesus  Mes- 
siah." Those  who  preached  the  new  beliefs  to  Greeks 
translated  "Messiah"  into  '' Christos,'"  "Anointed." 
The  Greeks,  unfamiliar  with  Jewish  notions,  took 
it  for  granted  that  "  Christos"  was  a  proper  name.  By 
reason  of  this  blunder,  for  the  furtherance  of  which 
Paul  is  much  to  blame,  if,  indeed,  he  was  not  the  first 
to  perpetrate  it.  the  custom  became  established  and 
has  prevailed  to  the  present  day  of  speaking  of  Jesus 
as  "Jesus  Christ,"  or  simply  as  "Christ."  For  those 
who  accept  the  Jewish  notions  about  a  "Messiah"  and 
identify  Jesus  with  that  imaginary  personage  it  is 
perfectly  proper,  while  for  those  who  are  out  of  sym- 
pathy with  such  ideas  the  term  expresses  a  belief  which 
they  do  not  hold  and  they  must  confine  themselves 
to  the  use  of  the  name  "Jesus." 

The  better  educated  among  the  Greeks  and  Romans 


The  Synoptic  Gospels  79 

must  often  have  been  perplexed  at  hearing  "Anointed" 
used  as  if  it  were  a  proper  name.  Suetonius,  at  least, 
thought  that  he  had  detected  an  error  of  ignorance 
and  that  what  was  really  meant  was  "  Chrestos''  (long 
e) ,  "  The  Illustrious  One, ' '  used  as  a  title. 

The  second  and  third  verses  are  apparently  also  a 
later  interpolation,  since  nowhere  else  does  Mark  quote 
ancient  prophecies  and  claim  their  fulfilment.  This 
unfortunate  and  mischievous  custom  grew  up  later  and 
reached  its  culmination  with  the  final  editing  of  Mat- 
thew's Gospel. 

The  quotation  purports  to  be  from  the  writings  of 
Isaiah,  yet  this  is  true  only  of  the  second  half,  that  con- 
tained in  the  third  verse.  The  first  part  is  from  the 
book  of  an  unknown  author,  afterwards  called  Malachi, 
"messenger,"  either  because  he  prophesied  of  a  mes- 
senger, or  thought  of  himself  as  such.  When  the  Jews 
were  taken  away  into  exile  and  their  temple  destroyed, 
they  imagined  that  Jahveh  had  withdrawn  to  some 
unknown  region  in  the  distant  North.  Some  of  those 
who  returned  from  exile  were  not  over-zealous  in  rebuild- 
ing the  temple,  but  the  prophets  Haggai  and  Zechariah 
stimulated  enough  interest  to  complete  the  work  by 
their  brilliant  promises  that,  as  soon  as  it  was  finished, 
Jahveh  would  return  to  take  up  his  abode  in  it  and  that 
then  the  Golden  Age  would  begin,  the  great  king 
Zerubbabel  whom  they  already  recognised  as  the 
"  Branch"  promised  by  Isaiah  being  on  the  ground. 

The  temple  was  finished  in  the  year  516  b.  c,  but 
none  of  the  wonderful  things  which  had  been  promised 
followed  its  completion.  People  grew  indifferent  and 
careless,  old  evils  sprang  up  again,  those  who  had  grown 
rich  oppressed  the  poor,  the  priests  tolerated  abuses  and 
shared  them,  the  observance  of  the  law  became  lax. 


8o  The  Historic  Jesus 

and  men  even  ventured  to  bring  mouldy  bread  and  lame 
and  blind  animals  to  the  temple.  The  party  which  still 
held  to  the  expectations  found  a  spokesman  in  the 
anonymous  prophet,  who  assured  the  people  that  all 
would  come  true  as  promised.  Jahveh  would  suddenly 
come  to  his  temple,  but  he  woiild  first  send  a  messenger 
to  prepare  his  way,  who  would  execute  summary  ven- 
geance upon  the  priests  and  those  who  oppressed  the 
poor.  Then,  when  the  people  paid  tithes  and  offered 
sacrifices  in  accordance  with  the  law,  Jahveh  would 
pour  out  such  a  flood  of  material  blessings  that  there 
would  not  be  room  enough  to  receive  them.  This  and 
all  similar  prophecies  had  reference  to  men  living  at  the 
time  and  was  expected  to  produce  so  complete  a  reform- 
ation that  the  Golden  Age  would  come  as  its  natural 
result.  No  prophet  ever  imagined  that  people  would 
reform  on  the  prospect  of  wonderful  things  which  might 
happen  in  some  far-off  future  century.  The  expecta- 
tions were  not  fulfilled,  but  the  prophecy  remained  for 
convenient  encouragement  at  any  time  and,  although 
it  had  promised  a  messenger  who  should  announce  the 
return  of  Jahveh  to  his  rebuilt  temple,  it  did  not  disturb 
the  Jewish  mind,  which  was  totally  lacking  in  historical 
consciousness,  to  imagine  five  hiindred  years  later  that 
it  predicted  a  messenger  who  should  proclaim  the 
coming  of  a  A'^essiah  to  overthrow  the  dominion  of 
Rome  and  establish  the  sovereignty  of  the  "Saints 
of  the  Most  High."  The  Christians  took  advantage  of 
this  misconstrued  prophecy  and,  by  claiming  that 
John  was  the  messenger  foretold  by  the  anonymous 
prophet  and  that  he  had  predicted  a  great  successor, 
they  seemed  to  have  a  strong  argument  that  Jesus  was 
the  Messiah. 

The  application  of  the  other  prophecy  to  John  is  still 


The  Synoptic  Gospels  8i 

more  extraordinary.  It  is  given  at  length  by  Luke  and 
is  from  the  writings  of  another  unknown  prophet,  a 
man  entirely  carried  away  by  enthusiasm,  who  lived 
among  the  Jews  in  Babylon  in  the  later  years  of  the 
exile  and  whose  writings  are  included  in  the  Book  of 
Isaiah,  beginning  with  the  40th  chapter. 

When  the  exiles  in  Babylon  heard  of  the  victory  of 
Cyrus  over  Crcesus,  King  of  Lydia,  at  Sardes,  in  547, 
or  546  B.  C,  the  delirium  of  the  fanatical  party  became 
a  perfect  frenzy  of  wrath  and  enthusiasm,  wrath  to  be 
sated  by  the  wholesale  slaughter  of  the  Babylonians 
(Psalm  137)  and  enthusiasm  over  the  expected  return 
to  Judasa,  the  rebuilding  of  the  temple,  and  the  wonder- 
ful things  which  would  follow.  As  regarded  the  return 
to  Judaga,  the  prophet  declared  that  they  would  not 
take  the  long  northern  route,  but  would  all  march 
straight  across  the  Syrian  desert,  where  Jahveh  himself 
would  make  a  great  highway,  with  abundant  springs  of 
water  and  pleasant  trees  for  shade.  A  voice  would 
precede  the  host  crying:  "In  the  wilderness  prepare 
ye  the  way  of  Jahveh,  make  straight  in  the  desert  a 
highway  for  our  God.  Every  valley  will  be  exalted 
and  every  mountain  and  hill  will  be  made  low;  and  the 
crooked  will  be  made  straight  and  the  rough  places 
plain ;  and  the  glory  of  Jahveh  will  be  revealed,  and  all 
flesh  will  see  it  together." 

This  was  magnificent,  but  the  highway  across  the 
desert  did  not  materialise,  and  such  of  the  exiles  as 
eventually  returned  to  Judasa  were  obliged  to  follow 
the  only  practicable  route.  The  Jewish  Christians 
imagined  that  they  discovered  in  this  dazzling  dream 
of  the  prophet  of  the  exile  a  prophecy  of  John  the  Bap- 
tist. In  both  cases  there  was  a  wilderness  and  a  voice, 
which  seemed  to  be  striking  coincidences,  and  they  read 


82  The  Historic  Jesus 

the  old  prophecy:  "The  voice  of  him  that  crieth  in  the 
wilderness,"  whereas  they  should  have  read:  "The 
voice  of  him  that  crieth,  In  the  wilderness  prepare 
ye  the  way,"  All  Christendom  has  perpetuated  this 
blunder. 

John  the  Baptist  had  attracted  a  multitude  to  his 
preaching  and  had  created  a  profound  impression. 
He  was  a  hermit  from  the  desert  where  he  had  long 
practised  extreme  asceticism,  but  he  had  come  back 
to  the  haunts  of  men  with  a  burning  message  of  denun- 
ciation, judgment,  and  wrath,  hoping  to  reform  the 
multitude  through  terror.  Jesus  afterwards  bore  wit- 
ness to  his  greatness  as  a  moral  force,  but  declared  that 
the  least  in  the  Kingdom  of  God  was  greater  than  he, 
because  the  sweeter  and  more  rational  life  is  more 
fruitful  in  results  and  because  a  fountain  of  righteous 
impulses  within  the  heart  produces  a  character  and 
conduct  which  are  impossible  under  any  mere  con- 
formity to  law.  The  wildness  of  his  looks  and  dress, 
together  with  the  severity  of  his  asceticism,  appealed 
to  the  popular  imagination,  and  under  the  pressure  of 
excitement  many  were  temporarily  converted,  yet  not 
long  afterwards  some  of  the  same  people  said  that  John 
"had  a  devil  "  (Matt,  xi,  i8.) 

Baptism  was  not  a  new  custom,  but  had  been  in  vogue 
for  centuries  all  over  the  Orient,  in  India  and  in  Egypt* 
among  the  Persians  and  Etruscans,  in  the  religion  of 
Mithras  and  in  the  Greek  mysteries;  for  it  was  inevi- 
table that,  at  a  certain  stage  of  culture,  the  cleansing 
and  life-giving  power  of  water  should  make  it  a  fitting 
symbol  of  the  cleansing  and  quickening  of  the  soul. 
The  Jews  had  probably  adopted  it  from  the  Babylon- 
ians during  the  exile,  and  since  their  return  had  baptised 
proselytes,  as  the  symbol  of  the  washing  away  of  their 


The  Synoptic  Gospels  83 

former  beliefs.  With  John  it  was  the  symbol  and 
record  of  the  cleansing  of  the  moral  nature,  which  had 
already  taken  place  as  the  result  of  repentance,  and 
could  not  have  been  considered  by  him  as  a  means  "for 
the  remission  of  sins,"  as  was  taught  in  many  of  the 
pagan  religions  and  afterwards  by  the  Christians. 
He  believed  that  a  Messiah  was  coming  who  would 
strengthen  the  wills  of  the  faithful  by  a  baptism  with 
the  Holy  Ghost,  consuming  all  wickedness  and  the 
hopelessly  wicked  in  a  baptism  by  fire. 

Before  the  middle  of  the  second  century  the  Christ- 
ians had  come  to  think  that  baptism  by  both  water 
and  the  Holy  Ghost  was  necessary,  and  it  was  reported 
among  them  that  Jesus  had  said,  "Except  a  man  be  bom 
of  water  and  the  Holy  Ghost  he  cannot  enter  into  the 
Kingdom  of  God."  (Johniii,  3.)  Thus,  by  impercep- 
tible degrees  they  fell  back  into  extemaHties  of  relig- 
ious observance  from  which  a  better  appreciation  of 
his  teaching  would  have  delivered  them.  Baptism 
acquired  among  them  the  supposed  efficacy  assigned 
to  circumcision  among  the  Jews,  as  a  tangible  guarantee 
of  divine  favour,  together  with  magical  theories  as  to 
its  operation  which  made  it  attractive  to  the  pagan 
mind,  while  the  operation  of  the  Spirit  of  God  was 
gradually  confined  to  strictly  ecclesiastical  channels, 
the  bishops  being  eventually  imagined  to  be  its  sole 
dispensers. 

§  //.•  Mark  i,  Q-ii;  Luke  in,  21,  22;  Mali,  in,  13-17 

The  excitement  aroused  by  the  preaching  of  John 
the  Baptist  spread  as  far  as  Galilee,  and  among  the 
crowds  attracted  by  it  came  Jesus  of  Nazareth.  This  is 
the  earliest  mention  of  him  in  the  canonical  Gospels 


84  The  Historic  Jesus 

and  his  baptism  must  be  recognised  as  an  actual  his- 
torical fact,  else  it  never  would  have  found  a  place  in 
the  narrative,  for  it  seemed  to  make  him  in  a  way  sub- 
ordinate to  John,  which  was  incompatible  with  the 
ideas  of  the  Christians  concerning  him.  They  after- 
wards tried  to  soften  down  the  implication  and  verses 
14  and  15  ("I  have  need  to  be  baptised  of  thee,"  etc.) 
were  interpolated  in  Matthew's  Gospel  for  that  purpose, 
but  it  is  altogether  improbable  that  John  recognised 
him  as  differing  in  any  way  from  other  Galilean  pil- 
grims or  that  he  knew  him,  or  was  related  to  him,  as 
the  Christians  afterwards  liked  to  believe. 

It  is  stated  that  immediately  after  his  baptism  Jesus 
had  a  wonderful  experience,  that,  while  no  one  else 
heard  or  saw  anything,  "he  saw  the  heavens  opened  and 
the  Spirit  like  a  dove  descending  upon  him"  and  that 
he  heard  a  voice  from  heaven  saying,  "Thou  art  my 
beloved  Son,  in  whom  I  am  well  pleased."  If  Jesus  had 
this  experience,  it  could  not  have  been  known,  unless 
he  had  related  it  to  some  of  his  disciples  afterwards, 
but  this  is  hardly  probable  for  various  reasons.  He 
certainly  had  the  clearest  and  strongest  consciousness 
of  God  of  any  one  who  ever  lived  and  this,  in  con- 
nection with  the  new  enthusiasm  over  the  immediate 
coming  of  the  Kingdom  of  God  which  he  had  acquired 
from  John,  would  inevitably  make  the  moment  of  his 
baptism  the  occasion  of  great  spiritual  exaltation,  as 
the  consecration  of  his  life  to  the  preparation  of  his 
fellow  countrymen  for  that  great  event.  He  would 
naturally  afterwards  speak  of  his  great  work  as  dating 
from  that  time,  but  men  do  not  relate  their  highest 
spiritual  experiences,  least  of  all  Jesus,  who  found  no 
one  to  sympathise  with  his  highest  moods  and  larger 
perceptions.     A  generation  later,  however,  the  Christ- 


The  Synoptic  Gospels  85 

ians  were  quite  sure  that  something  extraordinary  had 
happened  at  the  time  of  his  baptism;  for,  since  they 
had  made  it  the  fundamental  article  of  their  belief 
that  he  was  the  Messiah,  they  had  begun  to  find  it 
necessary  to  explain  how  it  was  that  an  ordinary  man 
had  attained  that  exalted  position.  The  baptism 
seemed  to  furnish  the  convenient  opportunity.  God, 
they  said,  had  anointed  him  with  the  Holy  Ghost  at 
that  time,  thus  making  him  the  Messiah,  and  had  then 
disclosed  to  him  his  high  calling,  by  applying  to  him 
the  words  of  the  second  Psalm.  This  Psalm,  together 
with  the  first  Psalm,  was  prefixed  to  the  first  book  of 
Psalms,  which  contains  those  from  the  third  to  the 
forty-first  inclusive.  It  is  "Messianic"  and  could  not 
have  been  written  until  the  ideas  which  it  sets  forth 
and  which  are  those  of  the  apocalyptic  literature  had 
come  into  vogue.  The  author  may  have  had  in  mind 
a  certain  king  or  prince,  but  more  probably  the  whole 
Jewish  people.  The  words  "Thou  art  my  Son,  this 
day  have  I  begotten  thee"  need  to  be  borne  in  mind, 
because  they  are  misquoted  in  the  gospel. 

This  explanation  as  to  how  Jesus  came  to  be  the 
Messiah  does  not  belong  to  the  earliest  days  of  the  new 
religion.  Paul  never  heard  of  it  and  does  not  mention 
it  in  his  writings.  It  was  enough  for  him  and  for  the 
first  generation  of  Christians  generally  to  believe  that 
the  heavenly  Messiah  had  entered  into  and  taken  pos- 
session of  the  body  of  Jesus.  The  belief  in  a  "spiritual 
body"  which  he  and  many  of  the  first  generation  of 
Christians  believed  that  they  had  seen,  as  the  resur- 
rected body  of  Jesus,  and  which  figured  so  largely  in 
the  Gnostic  systems  early  in  the  second  century 
sufficed  without  further  explanation.  The  second 
generation  of  Christians,  however,  which  rapidly  mate- 


86  The  Historic  Jesus 

rialised  the  belief  in  the  resurrection  into  the  story  of 
a  physical  resurrection,  found  itself  confronted  with 
the  question  as  to  how  Jesus  became  the  Messiah,  and 
the  story  of  the  descent  of  the  Spirit  at  the  time  of  his 
baptism  was  its  solution  of  the  problem.  The  earliest 
written  gospel,  of  about  the  year  70  a.d.,  contained  no 
other  solution. 

When,  however,  the  new  religion  had  spread  into 
foreign  lands  and  converts  with  no  Jewish  traditions 
and  no  Messianic  theories  had  taken  the  expression 
"Son  of  God"  as  applied  to  Jesus  literally,  and  had 
developed  in  consequence  the  theory  of  a  supernatural 
birth  in  accordance  with  pagan  ideas,  the  Jewish  theory 
was  modified  and  its  record  in  the  gospel  altered  to 
conform  to  the  new  belief.  Then  it  was  that  the  quo- 
tation from  the  second  Psalm,  "Thou  art  my  Son, 
this  day  have  I  begotten  thee,"  was  changed  to  read, 
"  Thou  art  my  Son,  in  whom  I  am  well  pleased,"  thus 
conveying  the  idea  not  that  Jesus  was  then  and  there 
made  the  Messiah,  "  anointed  with  the  Holy  Ghost  and 
with  power"  (Acts  x,  38),  but  simply  that  God  expressed 
his  satisfaction  in  his  miraculously-born  son.  That 
this  change  was  really  made  is  evident  from  the  Gospel 
of  the  Hebrews  which,  as  it  did  not  afterwards  become 
canonical,  was  not  amended  to  suit  the  new  views,  but 
gives  the  quotation  correctly,  as  does  also  one  of  the 
early  manuscripts  of  Luke's  Gospel. 

It  is  interesting  to  note  that,  while  theories  which 
connected  the  "  Messiahship  "  of  Jesus  with  his  baptism 
were  general  among  the  Jewish  Christians  and  stories 
of  a  miraculous  birth  became  popular  later  among  both 
Jews  and  pagans,  the  author  of  the  fourth  Gospel, 
writing  at  least  a  generation  after  the  latest  of  the 
Synoptic  authors,  swept  away  both  theories  and  substi- 


The  Synoptic  Gospels  87 

tuted  for  them  a  grander  interpretation  based  upon 
the  most  sublime  speculations  of  Alexandrian  philo- 
sophy. According  to  him  Jesus  was  not  baptised  at  all, 
and  had  no  vision  and  heard  no  voice,  but  John  had  a 
vision,  which  assured  him  that  Jesus  was  the  Messiah. 
There  was  no  miraculous  birth,  but  "the  Word  was 
made  flesh,"  the  writer  did  not  presume  to  say  how. 
These  three  views  are  mutually  exclusive,  but  it  is  one 
of  the  curiosities  of  religious  history  that  a  majority 
of  Christians  have  always  tried  to  hold  all  three  at  once, 
the  Jewish  view,  the  pagan  view,  and  the  philosophical 
view,  simply  because  they  found  them  all  in  the  gospels 
and  have  not  realised  how  rapidly  beliefs  developed 
when  Christianity  was  young. 

The  Jews  had  long  been  taught  that  the  Spirit  of 
God  was  "like  a  dove,"  because  one  of  their  commen- 
tators had  so  described  the  "brooding"  upon  the  face 
of  the  waters  mentioned  in  the  Book  of  Genesis.  The 
Greeks,  on  the  other  hand,  conceived  of  the  "Good 
Spirit"  in  the  form  of  a  serpent.  Both  notions  are 
reHcs  of  animism,  but  the  Spirit  of  God  will  remain  as 
a  living  force  in  the  souls  of  men  long  after  the  dove  has 
disappeared  from  among  our  church  decorations. 

The  growth  of  the  legend  is  indicated  in  the  gospels. 
In  Mark's  Gospel  it  is  Jesus  alone  who  sees  and  hears 
wonderful  things,  in  Luke's  others  apparently  hear  and 
see,  while  in  Matthew's  the  voice  speaks  to  others,  not 
to  Jesus.  When  the  fourth  Gospel  was  written  the 
whole  account  was  transformed  into  that  of  a  vision 
which  John  had  and  by  means  of  which  he  was  enabled 
to  identify  the  Messiah,  calling  attention  to  him  as 
"The  Lamb  of  God." 

The  statement  in  Luke's  Gospel,  vii,  18,  that  John 
the  Baptist,  hearing  during  his  imprisonment  of  the 


88  The  Historic  Jesus 

growing  reputation  of  Jesus,  sent  two  of  his  disciples 
to  him  with  the  question:  "Art  thou  he  that  should 
come,  or  look  we  for  another,"  makes  it  evident  that, 
if  John  baptised  Jesus,  he  had  paid  no  special  attention 
to  him  at  the  time  and  had  known  of  nothing  extra- 
ordinary in  connection  with  his  baptism. 

This  statement,  which  belongs  to  the  earliest  layer 
of  traditions  embodied  in  the  gospel,  shows  that  the 
story  of  the  vision  and  the  voice  is  a  pure  invention 
of  the  second  Christian  generation  for  the  purpose  of 
explaining  how  a  man  had  become  the  Messiah  and 
that  it  has,  therefore,  no  historical  foundation. 

§  ///.•  Mark  i,  12,  13;  Luke  iv,  1-13;  Matt;  iv,  i-ii 

Some  of  the  Greek  kings  of  Syria  had  made  a  laudable 
attempt  to  civilise  the  Jews  by  bringing  them  into 
harmony  with  the  culture  of  the  world,  but  had  thereby 
aroused  a  bitter  opposition  to  everything  that  was 
Greek,  which  had  culminated  in  war  when  Antiochus 
made  his  unfortunate  blunder  of  trying  to  abolish  the 
Jewish  religion.  While,  however,  the  party  of  fana- 
tics, afterwards  known  as  Pharisees,  was  occupied  in 
protecting  themselves  and  their  fellow  countrymen 
against  Western  influences,  not  even  allowing  their 
sons  to  learn  Gretk,  but  putting  it  criminally  on  a  par 
with  the  raising  of  hogs,  they  had  left  the  rear  un- 
guarded, and  for  many  generations  beliefs,  notions,  and 
superstitions  had  flowed  in  in  a  steady  stream  from  the 
East  and  in  time  had  transformed  the  popular  religion 
of  the  Jews  quite  as  completely  as  if  they  had  suc- 
cumbed to  the  culture  of  the  Greeks.  The  Book  of 
Daniel  had  marked  the  beginning  of  the  flood  of  Ori- 
ental ideas,  Babylonian  and  Persian,  which  accumulated 


The  Synoptic  Gospels  89 

rapidly  in  the  two  succeeding  centuries.  Monotheism 
or  rather  monolatry,  which  had  grown  up  during  and 
after  the  exile,  had  given  way  to  Persian  dualism.  A 
good  God  and  a  bad  god  were  contending  for  the  sov- 
ereignty of  the  world,  assisted  by  hosts  of  angels  and 
demons.  The  bad  god  was  in  the  ascendant  and  had 
become  the  "Prince  of  this  world,"  but  the  good  God 
would  eventually  win  the  victory  through  a  Saviour, 
a  warrior,  a  mighty  deliverer,  who  would  conquer  the 
Devil  and  rescue  the  "  Saints  of  the  Most  High."  There 
would  eventually  be  a  physical  resurrection,  that  those 
who  had  died  in  this  expectation  might  enjoy  their 
share  in  the  victory.  This  was  virtually  the  Zoro- 
astrian  religion,  but  it  had  taken  fast  hold  of  the  Jewish 
people  under  the  zealous  propagandism  of  the  Phari- 
saic party.  Many  features  of  the  Persian  myth  had 
been  added  to  the  Jewish  notion  of  a  Messiah  and  had 
developed  the  expectation  of  the  great  deliverer  who 
in  conquering  the  Devil  would  also  overthrow  the 
Roman  Empire  and,  rescuing  the  Jews  from  tyranny 
and  oppression,  give  them  the  sovereignty  of  the  world. 
The  belief  was  not  only  flattering  to  Jewish  pride, 
but  it  also  afforded  a  welcome  prospect  of  relief  for 
the  multitude  of  the  common  people  who  suffered  much 
from  the  oppression  and  cruelty  of  a  foreign  dominion, 
the  lawlessness  of  the  rich,  and  the  frequent  miscarriage 
of  justice.  It  was  no  wonder  that  they  found  their 
dearest  consolation  in  the  hope  of  a  Messiah,  nor  that 
they  were  on  the  lookout  and  asked  the  question  of 
many  a  promising  man,  "Art  thou  he  that  should 
come?"  nor  that  they  often  threw  themselves  with 
fanatical  frenzy  into  the  following  of  any  one  who  gave 
himself  out  as  the  Messiah,  as  thousands  had  done  not 
long  before  the  time  of  Jesus  in  the  case  of  Judas  the 


90  The  Historic  Jesus 

Galilean.  It  is  impossible  for  us  modem  men,  accus- 
tomed to  the  placid  routine  of  well-regulated  lives, 
to  transport  ourselves  in  thought  into  the  midst  of  a 
population  which  is  either  crushed  by  the  insanity  of 
despair,  or  hves  in  the  wildest  delirium  of  hope;  and 
yet,  only  in  so  far  as  we  can  realise  the  environment 
can  we  make  real  to  ourselves  what  Jesus  meant  to 
the  first  generation  of  Jewish  Christians.  To  them  he 
was  the  Messiah.  He  had  overcome  the  Devil  and 
would  return  from  heaven  soon,  very  soon,  to  establish 
his  kingdom  and  sovereignty.  Wars  and  oppressions 
would  cease,  diseases  would  no  more  afflict  humanity, 
because  the  demons  which  caused  them  would  be  put 
to  flight.  The  new  fertiHty  of  the  earth  would  abolish 
hunger,  the  sifting  out  of  bad  men  would  put  an  end  to 
injustice  and  crime,  and,  in  the  realised  Kingdom  of  God, 
peace  and  plenty,  righteousness  and  joy  would  abide 
for  ever. 

It  was  a  glorious  dream,  the  most  transcendent  which 
ever  illuminated  the  heart  of  man.  To  Jesus  the  com- 
ing of  the  Kingdom  soon  and  suddenly  was  an  absolute 
reality  and  the  source  of  his  overwhelming  enthusiasm. 
Of  gentler  heart  and  larger  sympathy  than  John,  it  was 
not  so  much  the  preceding  judgment  which  impressed 
him  as  the  relief  which  the  Kingdom  would  bring  to 
the  poor,  the  sick  and  the  hungry,  the  oppressed,  the 
unfortunate  and  the  weary,  and  he  went  out  to  preach 
the  good  news  of  the  coming  of  the  Kingdom,  that  a 
multitude  might  be  ready  in  the  wedding  garment  of 
pure  hearts  and  noble  lives  for  the  joys  of  citizenship. 

He  did  not  think  of  himself  as  the  Messiah,  nor  give 
himself  out  as  such,  in  fact  he  was  so  absorbed  in  his 
message  about  the  Kingdom  and  its  coming  that  he  did 
not  think  of  himself  at  all.     The  early  Jewish  Christ- 


The  Synoptic  Gospels  91 

ians,  however,  held  the  belief  that  there  was  to  be  a 
Messiah  and  that  Jesus  was  he.  To  this  belief  they 
went  out  to  win  converts  and  in  aid  of  this  belief  the 
original  gospels  were  written, 

Mark  assumes  in  his  gospel  the  literal  truth  of  the 
vision  and  voice  at  the  baptism,  believing  that  Jesus 
had  the  Messianic  dignity  conferred  upon  him  at  that 
time  and  that  he  was  also  made  acquainted  with  the 
fact.  He  therefore  assumes  that  he  began  his  public 
work  in  the  full  consciousness  of  being  the  Messiah, 
but  that  for  some  unaccountable  reason  he  did  not  wish 
to  have  it  known. 

It  was  a  recognised  fact  that  Jesus  had  been  baptised 
by  John.  After  that  event  there  was  nothing  known 
of  him  until  he  began  to  preach  in  Capernaum,  after 
John  was  put  into  prison.  It  seemed  to  the  early  Christ- 
ians, however,  that,  being  the  Messiah  and  being  con- 
scious of  the  fact,  he  must  have  begun  his  work  as  such 
by  having  a  personal  encounter  with  the  Devil.  They 
thought  that  the  Spirit  which  had  taken  possession  of 
him,  and  which  it  seemed  to  them  had  suspended  his 
volition,  drove  him  out  into  the  wilderness  to  this  in- 
evitable conflict.  Mark  does  not  go  into  details  as  to 
what  happened  in  the  wilderness,  because  when  he  wrote 
the  story  had  not  been  amplified  as  it  was  later.  When 
we  turn  to  the  longer  narratives  by  Luke  and  Matthew, 
we  find  that  in  the  generation  after  Mark  wrote  the 
Christians  were  able  to  specify  some  of  the  extraor- 
dinary things  which  were  supposed  to  have  happened 
during  the  imagined  sojourn  of  Jesus  in  the  desert  and 
yet,  upon  closer  examination,  these  narratives,  although 
in  the  form  of  history,  are  seen  to  be  in  reality  only  the 
survival  of  early  Christian  apologetics.  The  Christians, 
in  trying  to  win  converts  to  the  belief  that  Jesus  was  the 


92  The  Historic  Jesus 

Messiah,  were  constantly  meeting  the  objection  that  he 
had  not  in  any  way  filled  the  r61e  of  a  Messiah,  as  it 
was  portrayed  by  the  popular  consciousness.  People 
said  that  a  Messiah  should  not  have  been  obliged  to 
suffer  poverty,  anxiety,  and  persecution,  but  would 
natvu-ally  have  used  his  superhuman  power  for  the 
relief  of  his  bodily  needs.  The  Christians  answered 
that  this  was  a  temptation  of  the  Devil,  that  Jesus  had 
been  all  the  greater  because  he  had  refused  to  make  his 
superhuman  power  subservient  to  his  physical  wants 
and  that,  as  a  reward  for  his  fidelity  in  refusing  to  make 
bread  out  of  stones,  the  angels  had  brought  him  food, 
which  recalled  the  supposed  miraculous  feeding  of  the 
Israelites  in  the  desert  and  the  good  offices  of  the  ravens 
to  Elijah.  Again  the  people  retorted  that  Moses  and 
Elijah  had  done  many  wonderful  things,  but  that  the 
real  Messiah,  when  he  came,  would  surpass  them  in 
astonishing  exhibitions  of  his  power.  Jesus,  however, 
had  wrought  no  miracles  and  had  even  replied  to  the 
Pharisees,  when  they  demanded  some  evidence  of  his 
ability,  that  there  would  be  none.  (Mk.  viii,  12.  Lk. 
xi,  29.)  It  was  evident,  they  said,  that  Jesus  could 
not  be  the  Messiah,  for  did  they  not  read  in  the  ninety- 
first  Psalm,  "He  will  give  his  angels  charge  over  thee, 
to  keep  thee  in  all  thy  ways.  They  will  bear  thee  in 
their  hands,  that  thou  hurt  not  thy  foot  against  a 
stone."  Surely  this  was  a  "Messianic"  prophecy,  they 
said,  and  a  real  Messiah  would  have  proved  his  Messiah- 
ship  by  jumping  from  the  temple  roof  and  coming  down 
unhurt  upon  the  rocks  below,  to  which  the  Christians 
replied  that  this  also  was  a  temptation  of  the  Devil, 
for,  while  so  astonishing  a  thing  might  have  won  the 
adhesion  of  a  crowd,  that  crowd  would  not  have  been 
transformed  thereby  into  a  fitness  for  citizenship  in  the 


The  Synoptic  Gospels  93 

Kingdom  of  God  and  so  the  real  work  of  a  Messiah 
would  have  gained  nothing.  But  there  was  another 
and  more  serious  objection  in  the  popular  mind.  The 
Messiah  was  to  be  a  great  prince  and  warrior,  the 
sovereign  ruler  of  a  wide-spreading  empire.  He  was 
to  lead  forth  an  army  to  victory  and,  returning  with 
the  spoils  of  war,  establish  his  dominion  over  the  nations 
of  the  earth.  Jesus,  however,  had  raised  no  army  and 
aspired  to  no  political  power,  but  on  the  contrary  had 
been  rejected  by  his  own  people  and  crucified  by  the 
Romans.  He  could  not  be  the  Messiah.  To  this  the 
Christians  replied  that  this  popular  expectation  was 
also  a  temptation  of  the  Devil,  for,  as  the  kingdoms  of 
this  world  really  belonged  to  him,  no  one  could  aspire 
to  rule  them,  acquiring  dominion  by  force,  without 
first  acknowledging  his  supremacy. 

Thus  the  story  of  the  "temptations"  is  seen  to  be  a 
record  of  early  apologetics  expressed  in  the  naive  and 
superstitious  form,  in  which  alone  it  could  appeal  to  the 
popular  consciousness;  for  it  seemed  perfectly  natural 
to  the  Oriental  mind  of  that  day  that  the  Devil  should 
fly  with  one  through  the  air,  nor  did  it  shock  their  geo- 
graphical consciousness  to  be  told  of  a  mountain  from 
which  one  could  see  "all  the  kingdoms  of  the  world." 
In  the  Gospel  of  the  Hebrews,  which  was  in  common  use 
among  the  Jewish  Christians,  it  is  stated  that  Mt. 
Tabor  is  the  mountain  in  question,  but  both  Luke  and 
Matthew  suppressed  the  name,  perhaps  because  they 
realised  that  no  such  extensive  view  was  to  be  had 
from  its  summit.  According  to  the  same  gospel,  it  was 
not  the  Devil  who  carried  Jesus  "up  into  an  high 
mountain,"  but  we  read,  immediately  after  the  account 
of  the  baptism,  "Then  my  mother  the  Holy  Ghost 
took  me  by  one  of  my  hairs  and  carried  me  away  to 


94  The  Historic  Jesus 

the  top  of  Mt.  Tabor."  The  suggestion  for  this  state- 
ment was  found  in  the  Book  of  Ezekiel  (viii,  3)  in 
which  the  author  stated  that  he  had  had  a  similar 
experience,  but  the  remarkable  feature  of  this  passage 
from  the  Gospel  of  the  Hebrews  is  that  it  declares  the 
Holy  Ghost  to  have  been  the  mother  of  Jesus.  If  this 
gospel  had  not  been  supplanted  by  others  and  finally 
suppressed  when  the  canon  of  New  Testament  writings 
was  made,  Christian  theology  would  have  followed 
quite  a  different  cotuse,  issuing  in  a  doctrine  of  the 
Trinity  formed  on  the  common  Oriental  model  of 
father, mother,  and  child;  but,  at  an  eariy  day,  the  large 
preponderance  of  Greeks  among  the  Christians  natur- 
ally suppressed  this  form  of  the  doctrine  for  the  simple 
reason  that  the  Holy  Ghost  in  Greek  is  neuter. 

The  pagan  mind,  however,  accustomed  for  centuries 
to  the  worship  of  the  "eternal  feminine,"  avenged  itself 
in  the  fifth  century  upon  the  philosophical  doctrine 
of  the  Trinity  by  introducing  the  worship  of  the 
"  Mother  of  God,"  in  place  of  that  of  Artemis,  Athena, 
Ceres,  Venus,  Isis,  and  others,  which  it  had  lost. 

In  the  year  1854  the  Church  of  Rome  virtually  sub- 
stituted a  Divine  Quatemity  for  the  older  Trinity, 
since  the  multitude  can  never  recognise  the  fine  dis- 
tinction between  ''dulia"  and  "hyperdulia,''  while  the 
Jesuits,  with  their  more  recent  Trinity — "Jesus,  Mary, 
Joseph" — have  restored  the  still  older  pagan  model. 

Many  serious  and  scholarly  students  of  the  life  of 
Jesus  assume  with  Mark  that  he  really  believed  himself 
to  be  the  Messiah  from  the  time  of  his  baptism,  and 
therefore  that  the  temptation  to  adapt  his  life  and  work 
to  the  popular  notions  was  very  serious  and  was  only 
overcome  after  severe  struggles  with  himself.  There  is, 
however,  no  evidence  that  he  thought  himself  to  be  the 


The  Synoptic  Gospels  95 

Messiah  and,  had  he  done  so,  the  popular  notions  could 
have  brought  no  temptations  to  him. 

He  could  not  have  imagined  himself  winning  converts 
by  displays  of  power,  even  had  he  thought  himself  gifted 
with  the  power  to  work  miracles.  He  was  too  great  for 
that,  and  the  converts  which  he  sought  were  not  to  be 
won  in  that  way.  Nor  could  he  imagine  himself 
organising  an  army  of  revolt,  attacking  the  legions  of 
Syria  and  founding  a  Jewish  empire.  It  was  God's 
Kingdom  in  which  he  was  interested,  not  his  own. 
God  was  almighty  and  would  establish  his  Kingdom 
when  it  pleased  him.  His  mission  was  to  prepare  men 
for  its  coming.  The  idea  of  a  political  Messiahship  was 
never  for  a  moment  a  temptation  to  him.  He  had 
great  trials  and  perplexities,  many  sorrows  and  mo- 
ments of  despair,  but  such  temptations  as  Jewish 
Christians  imagined  for  him  he  never  had.  In  fact, 
these  stories  of  the  temptations  of  a  divine,  or  divinely 
appointed,  deliverer  were  part  of  the  floating  mythology 
of  the  whole  Oriental  world  and  were  told  in  very 
similar  form  of  Buddha  and  Zoroaster.  We  may  safely 
conclude,  therefore,  that  the  story  of  the  "temptations" 
has  not  the  slightest  historical  foundation,  but  resulted 
from  a  strange  mixture  of  mythology  and  apologetics. 
We  come  now  to  the  part  of  the  narrative  which  does 
contain  true  history. 

§  IV:  Mark  i,  14,  15;  Luke  Hi,  iq,  20;  iv,  14, 15;  Matt. 

iv,  12-17 

After  the  imprisonment  of  John,  Jesus  began  to 
preach  in  Galilee.  The  biirden  of  his  preaching  was  the 
good  news  that  the  Kingdom  of  God  was  at  hand.  It 
is  necessary  to  understand  what  he  meant  by  it.     As  he 


96  The  Historic  Jesus 

never  gave  any  new  explanations  of  it,  he  certainly 
meant  what  the  majority  of  the  Jewish  people  in  his 
day  understood  by  it,  which  was  that  Jahveh  would 
soon  establish  his  personal  reign  in  Jerusalem,  either 
with  or  without  the  aid  of  an  agent  called  the  Messiah. 
The  materialistic  and  political  amplifications  of  this 
belief  did  not  appeal  to  Jesus  at  all,  but  he  derived  his 
overwhelming  enthusiasm  from  his  sure  conviction 
that  God  would  soon  reign  in  the  hearts  and  lives  of 
the  Jewish  people,  abolishing  all  injustice  and  iniquity, 
and  causing  his  will  to  be  done  on  earth  as  it  was  done 
in  heaven. 

His  entire  preaching  was  simply  an  enlargement  upon 
the  one  theme,  The  Kingdom  of  God  is  at  hand, 
while  all  his  efforts  were  in  the  direction  of  making  as 
many  as  possible  believe  so  entirely  that  the  Kingdom 
was  really  coming  as  to  alter  their  lives  to  correspond 
with  its  ideals  and  so  be  found  worthy  of  citizenship, 
when  it  should  come. 

The  invitation  of  Jesus,  addressed  indiscriminately 
to  the  Jewish  multitude,  discloses  certain  elements  of 
his  belief  which  are  often  overlooked  and  have  often 
been  contradicted  in  Christian  theology.  For  it  shows 
that  there  was  no  thought  in  his  mind  of  any  fore- 
ordination  of  men  to  belief  or  unbelief,  to  virtue  or 
vice,  nor  that  ihe  case  of  any  man  was  so  hopeless, 
or  his  will  so  weak,  that  he  could  not  alter  the  whole 
attitude  and  tendency  of  his  life,  under  the  inspiration 
of  a  new  ideal. 

Jesus  undoubtedly  lived  for  some  time  in  Capernaum 
and  preached  there,  but  it  was  not,  as  the  Christians 
afterwards  beUeved  and  as  Matthew's  Gospel  stated 
in  an  interpolated  passage,  "that  it  might  be  fulfilled, 
which  was  spoken  by  Isaiah  the  prophet,"  both  because 


The  Synoptic  Gospels  97 

an  ancient  prophecy  concerning  Jews  and  Babylonians 
had  not  the  most  remote  reference  to  a  Messiah,  and 
because,  if  he  did  things  only  in  order  that  some  old 
prophecy  might  be  fulfilled,  he  was  either  acting  a  role 
or  was  acted  upon  by  some  external  force.  In  either 
case  he  would  have  been  without  volition  and,  in  losing 
his  personality,  would  cease  to  be  interesting. 


I.      JESUS  IN  CAPERNAUM 

§§V-XXIX 
§  V:    Mark  i,  16-20;  Luke  v,  i-ii;  Matt,  iv,  18-22 

Jesus  began  his  public  work  among  the  villages 
and  towns  along  the  north-western  shore  of  the  Lake 
of  Galilee.  He  needed  men  to  help  him  in  spread- 
ing as  rapidly  as  possible  the  good  news  of  the  coming 
of  the  Kingdom  and  foiuid  them  mainly  among  the 
fishermen  of  that  region.  He  must  have  known  them 
and  they  must  have  felt  the  charm  of  his  wonderful 
personality  before  he  asked  them  to  become  fishers  of 
men.  Perhaps,  as  the  writer  of  the  fourth  Gospel  after- 
wards thought,  he  had  made  their  acquaintance  among 
the  Galileans  who  had  journeyed  to  the  preaching  of 
John. 

Those  who  were  invited  knew  at  once  what  was 
meant  by  being  "fishers  of  men."  They  were  to  carry 
on  the  work  inaugurated  by  John,  but  in  a  different 
and  sweeter  way,  of  which  they  must  have  already 
learned  the  attractiveness  from  an  acquaintance  with 
the  teaching  of  Jesus.  They  were  not  asked  to  give 
up  their  occupations  and  to  break  their  family  ties, 
for  they  continued  to  earn  their  living,  and  Jesus  found 
a  welcome  refuge  in  the  home  of  Peter,  who  lived  in 
Capernaum.     The  call  for  volunteers  who  were  willing 

98 


Jesus  in  Capernaum  '  99 

to  surrender  everything  in  an  attack  upon  the  strong- 
hold of  the  Jewish  religion  in  Jerusalem  came  later. 

Mark  records  the  fact  that  the  first  disciples  were  two 
pairs  of  brothers,  first  Peter  and  Andrew,  then  James 
and  John.  Matthew  gives  the  same  names,  but  Luke, 
for  some  reason,  omitted  Andrew,  although  he  must 
have  had  the  Gospel  by  Mark  before  him.  He  thought 
that  the  call  to  be  fishers  of  men  must  have  followed 
a  remarkable  catch  of  fish,  which  had  impressed  these 
men  by  the  supernatural  knowledge  of  Jesus.  Mark 
gives  two  accounts  later  of  wonderful  fishing,  both  being 
different  versions  of  the  same  story,  but  Luke  intro- 
duced the  account  here  evidently  for  allegorical  effect. 
He  also  (iv,  16-30)  introduces  an  account  of  preaching 
by  Jesus  at  Nazareth  at  the  beginning  of  his  ministry 
and  out  of  the  connection  given  in  the  earlier  Gospel. 
That  the  words  which  he  assigns  to  Jesus  on  that  occa- 
sion are  due  to  his  own  literary  ability  and  cannot  be 
historical  is  evident  from  the  fact  that  they  contradict 
the  earlier  record  of  the  preaching  of  Jesus.  For  he 
does  not  proclaim  the  coming  of  the  Kingdom  and  call 
upon  men  to  repent,  but,  reading  a  prophecy  believed 
to  be  Messianic,  applies  it  to  himself  and  thus  claims 
before  the  people  of  Nazareth  to  be  the  Messiah,  which 
is  impossible.  That  Luke  did  violence  to  history  in 
making  him  begin  his  work  in  Nazareth  is  also  evident 
from  the  23rd  verse,  in  which  reference  is  made  to  work 
already  done  at  Capernaum,  while  the  covert  reference 
to  great  blessings  in  store  for  the  heathen,  in  preference 
to  Jews,  could  not  have  occurred  to  any  one  until 
the  great  Church  among  the  Gentiles  had  become 
an  accomplished  fact,  least  of  all  to  Jesus,  who  bade 
his  disciples  confine  their  work  to  the  lost  sheep  of 
Israel. 


lOo  The  Historic  Jesus 

§   VI:  Mark  i,  21-28;  Luke  iv,  31-37 

Jesus  very  early  in  his  ministry  found  a  home  in 
Capernaum  and  taught  in  the  synagogue  on  the  Sab- 
bath. The  synagogue  was  an  institution  which  had 
grown  up  during  the  exile  in  Babylonia. 

More  than  a  hundred  years  before  that  event  the 
people  of  the  little  Kingdom  of  Judaea,  through  the  de- 
struction of  the  stronger  Kingdom  of  Israel  on  the 
north,  had  been  thrown  upon  their  own  resources  and 
had  fallen  more  and  more  under  the  control  of  the 
priests,  who,  with  the  aid  of  some  of  the  prophets,  had 
invented  a  new  law,  pretending  that  it  was  an  ancient 
one  recently  discovered.  The  result  had  been  a  rapid 
development  of  religious  arrogance,  intolerance,  and 
fanaticism. 

During  the  exile,  lest  they  should  forget  and  outgrow 
their  peculiar  institutions  and  gradually  be  absorbed 
by  the  surroimding  population,  some  of  the  priests  and 
prophets  gathered  them  into  congregations  on  the 
Sabbath,  expounding  to  them  the  new  ritual  law  and 
reading  from  the  writings  of  the  prophets,  of  which 
they  then  began  to  make  a  collection.  Thus  there 
grew  up  the  synagogue,  an  entirely  new  institution, 
which  those  who  returned  from  exile  brought  back  with 
them. 

It  might  have  become  the  means  of  a  complete 
emancipation  from  priestly  control,  since  it  made  pos- 
sible the  culture  of  religion  without  a  temple  or  priests 
or  sacrifices,  and  since,  while  the  law  prescribed  the 
ritual,  the  prophets  often  denoimced  it,  saying,  as 
Micah  did,  (vi,  6-8) : 

"Wherewith  shall  I  come  before  Jahveh  and  bow 
myself  before  the  high  God?  shall  I  come  before  him 


Jesus    in  Capernaum  loi 

with  burnt  offerings,  with  calves  of  a  year  old?  Will 
Jahveh  be  pleased  with  thousands  of  rams,  with  ten 
thousands  of  rivers  of  oil?-  Shall  I  give  my  first-bom  for 
my  transgression,  the  fruit  of  my  body  for  the  sin  of  my 
soul?  He  hath  showed  thee,  O  man,  what  is  good; 
and  what  doth  Jahveh  require  of  thee,  but  to  do  justly 
and  to  love  mercy  and  to  walk  humbly  with  thy  God?" 

The  power  of  the  priests  was  too  strong,  however, 
for  any  deliverance  and,  under  their  control  and  with 
the  aid  of  the  scribes,  the  synagogue  had  become  a  new 
instrument  of  oppression  for  the  binding  of  heavy  bur- 
dens upon  men's  shoulders,  which,  as  Paul  said  after- 
wards, neither  they  nor  their  fathers  had  been  able 
to  bear,  and  which  Jesus  contrasted  with  his  yoke  of  an 
awakened  conscience  and  a  new  outlook  upon  life, 
saying  that  his  yoke  was  easy  and  his  burden  was  light. 

It  is  no  wonder  that  people  were  astonished  at  the 
teaching  of  Jesus,  because  it  was  so  different  from  that 
of  the  scribes.  There  was  no  hair-splitting,  no  bal- 
ancing of  law  against  law,  no  quoting  of  authorities, 
no  confusing  of  minds,  no  multiplying  of  burdens,  but 
a  direct  appeal  to  the  heart  and  conscience  to  take  con- 
trol of  one's  Hfe  and  to  fit  oneself  for  citizenship  in  the 
coming  Kingdom.  He  seemed  to  have  authority,  the 
authority  of  strong  personal  conviction,  the  authority 
of  direct  intuition,  the  authority  of  personal  experience. 
And  his  word  was  with  power.  It  carried  conviction 
to  men  who  had  never  reahsed  their  manhood,  to  men 
who  had  never  been  told  and  had  not  dared  to  think 
that  they  had  a  right  to  form  or  to  hold  any  opinion  of 
their  own.  This  is  a  remarkable  feature  of  the  teaching 
of  Jesus  that  is  often  overlooked,  his  belief  in  the 
inherent  ability  of  men  to  respond  to  appeals  to  heart 
and  conscience,  to  recognise  the  principles  of  right,  and 


I02  The  Historic  Jesus 

to  perceive  some  of  the  realities  of  spiritual  things. 
Afterwards  it  came  to  be  believed,  under  the  leadership 
of  Paul,  that  these  things  were  prearranged  and  fore- 
ordained, but  with  Jesus  it  was  not  so.  God  and  good- 
ness were  such  absolute  realities  to  him  that  it  seemed 
to  him  that  they  must  be  as  real  to  all  men. 

The  words  of  Jesus  on  that  first  Sabbath  in  Caper- 
naum created  a  profound  impression  upon  those  who 
heard  them.  We  have  no  record  of  them,  but  may  be 
sure  of  their  general  tenor  from  such  of  his  sayings  as 
did  survive.  Among  those  who  heard  them  was  a  man 
suffering  from  nerve  and  brain  trouble.  According 
to  the  popular  notions  a  devil  had  taken  possession  of 
him  and  was  acting  upon  him  from  within,  for  such 
was  the  common  interpretation  of  all  diseases,  and 
Jesus  shared  it  with  the  majority  of  the  people  of  his 
day.  This  man,  being  wrought  up  to  a  state  of  great 
excitement,  suddenly  cried  out,  or,  as  those  present 
thought,  the  demons  in  him  cried  out,  that  Jesus  was 
the  Messiah  and  asked  if  he  had  come  to  destroy  "us," 
that  is,  the  demons. 

It  was  part  of  the  popular  notions  that  the  demons 
were  possessed  of  supernatural  knowledge  and  therefore 
that  a  crazy  man  would  recognise  the  Messiah,  when 
people  still  in  their  senses  might  not.  It  was  also  sup- 
posed to  be  the  principal  work  of  the  Messiah  to  over- 
come the  Devil  and  his  demons.  The  incident 
fitted  admirably  into  Mark's  belief  that  Jesus  was 
the  Messiah,  that  he  acted  from  the  beginning  in  the 
full  consciousness  of  being  the  Messiah,  and  that  he 
proved  it  by  the  wonderful  works  which  he  did;  also 
that  the  demons  always  recognised  him  and  cried  out  in 
alarm  at  the  presence  of  their  prospective  conqueror. 
We  read  that  "Jesus  rebuked  him,  saying.  Hold  thy 


Jesus  in  Capernaum  103 

peace  and  come  out  of  him,"  and  that  "when  the 
unclean  spirit  had  torn  him,  and  cried  with  a  loud  voice, 
he  came  out  of  him."  This  incident  is  probably  true 
history  and  things  happened  very  much  as  narrated, 
but  the  interpretation  put  upon  it  was  false  path- 
ology. 

The  progress  of  medical  knowledge  has  rendered  the 
supernatural  theory  of  disease  obsolete,  but  it  has  also 
served  to  explain  many  of  the  healings  recorded  in  the 
story  of  Jesus  as  due  to  psychological  and  magnetic 
influences.  In  this  case  the  man  believed  that  there 
was  a  demon  inside  of  him  and,  when  he  spoke,  it  was 
not  in  his  own  personality,  but  in  that  of  the  demon 
speaking  through  him.  Jesus,  beUeving  as  the  man 
did,  addressed  the  supposed  demon,  whereupon  the 
man,  believing  that  the  great  Messiah  had  commanded 
the  demon  to  come  out  of  him,  underwent  a  sudden 
revulsion  of  mental  conditions,  which  calmed  him  so 
completely  that  it  seemed  to  all  present  that  Jesus 
must  have  power  over  demons.  Jesus  was  as  surprised 
as  any  of  those  present  to  find  himself  possessed  of  this 
power  and  sought  an  explanation.  It  seemed  to  him 
strong  evidence  in  confirmation  of  his  belief  that  the 
Kingdom  of  God  was  near  at  hand,  as  in  the  spring-time 
the  early  flowers  give  promise  of  the  coming  summer 
(Lk.  xi,  20),  but  there  is  no  evidence  that  he  therefore 
thought  himself  to  be  the  Messiah. 

His  power  over  nervous  and  mental  diseases  was  the 
power  which  inheres  in  a  strong  body,  a  clear  intelli- 
gence, a  sincere  sympathy,  an  unsullied  moral  nature, 
and  a  profound  consciousness  of  God  over  a  weak  body, 
a  dull  mind,  a  perverted  moral  nature,  and  a  feeble  will. 
It  acts  by  suggestion,  but  depends  for  results  upon  the 
belief  of  the  individual,  as  we  read  that  he  could  not 


104  The  Historic  Jesus 

accomplish  cures  in  Nazareth  on  account  of  the  unbe- 
lief of  the  people. 

In  attempting  to  establish  the  true  story  of  Jesus,  it 
is  necessary  to  discriminate  between  the  healing  of  dis- 
eases, which  have  their  origin  in  the  mind  or  nerves, 
and  miracles,  which,  as  suspensions  or  subversions  of 
natural  law,  are  no  longer  recognised  as  possible. 

Mark,  and  after  him  Luke,  state  that  Jesus  rebuked 
the  supposed  demon  for  calling  him  the  Messiah  and 
bade  him  hold  his  peace.  One  would  naturally  say 
that  he  did  this  because  he  did  not  think  of  himself  as 
the  Messiah  and  did  not  wish  such  an  impression  to 
become  established.  Mark,  however,  uses  this  and 
other  accounts  of  recognition  by  the  demons  as  evidence 
of  the  Messiahship,  and  yet  he  is  inconsistent,  for  he 
shows,  in  his  account  of  the  great  event  several  months 
later,  at  Caesarea  Philippi,  that  not  until  that  time  did 
any  of  the  disciples  think  of  him  as  the  Messiah. 

The  behef  is  represented  at  that  time  not  only  as 
entirely  new,  but  as  due  to  a  direct  revelation  to  Peter; 
whereas,  if  the  disciples  had  known  of  the  frequently 
reported  recognition  by  the  supposed  demons,  they 
would  have  become  familiar  with  the  thought  and 
would  have  grown  into  the  belief  long  before  they  did. 
We  must  conclbde,  therefore,  that  Mark's  accoimt  of 
such  experiences  is,  at  least,  somewhat  overdone. 

Mark  mentions  one  Sabbath  in  the  synagogue  at 
Capernaum,  while  Luke  suggests  several.  They  are 
probably  both  right  and  Jesus  continued  his  teaching 
for  some  time,  while  it  was  probably  the  experiences  on 
the  first  Sabbath  which  created  the  great  impression. 
It  was  no  wonder  that  the  people  were  astonished  and 
called  it  a  new  doctrine,  for  Jesus  had  resorted  to  none 
of  the  incantations  and  magical  formulas  of  the  pro- 


Jesus  in  Capernaum  105 

fessional  exorcists,  but  the  result  had  followed  upon  his 
simple  command, 

§  VII:  Mark  i,  2^34;  Luke  iv,  38-41;  Matt,  viii  14-16 

This  eventful  day  did  not  end  with  the  scene  in  the 
synagogue,  for  it  is  related  that  on  returning  to  Simon's 
house  it  was  found  that  his  wife's  mother  was  ill  of  a 
fever,  and  that  when  Jesus  took  her  by  the  hand  the 
fever  left  her;  furthermore,  that  after  sunset  there  were 
brought  to  him  sick  and  insane  people  and  that  he 
healed  many  of  them. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  many  healings  took  place,  for 
it  would  be  contrary  to  both  history  and  science  to 
doubt  them,  or  many  similar  ones  for  many  ages  and 
in  many  lands.  Among  the  thousands  who  undertook 
in  ancient  days  the  weary  journey  to  the  temple  of  Isis 
at  Philse,  or  to  that  of  ^sculapius  at  Epidaurus,  among 
those  who  sought  the  Pool  of  Bethesda,  or  who  now 
throng  about  the  Grotto  at  Lourdes,  there  always  were 
and  still  are  many  cures.  Among  the  ignorant  and 
superstitious  they  were  and  still  are  held  to  be  due  to 
supernatural  causes,  whereas  the  patient  investigations 
of  science  have  shown  them  to  be  due  to  a  crisis  in  the 
high  tension  of  expectancy  and  belief  which  often 
results  in  a  complete  change  in  the  system.  The  cures 
have  been  shown  to  average  about  ten  per  cent,  of 
those  seeking  them  and  in  all  cases  it  was  the  intensity 
of  the  belief  which  wrought  the  cure.  What  the  object 
of  the  belief  was  did  not  matter.  The  tomb  of  St. 
Rosalia  at  Palermo  is  a  favourite  miracle-working  shrine, 
nor  was  its  efficacy  in  any  way  lessened  when  it  was 
discovered  that  it  contained  the  bones  of  a  goat. 

In  the  city  of  Treves  there  is  a  relic  known  as  the 


io6  The  Historic  Jesus 

"Holy  Coat  of  Treves"  and  believed  to  be  the  coat 
worn  by  Jesus  just  before  the  crucifixicn,  and  therefore 
imagined  to  possess  extraordinary  miracle-working 
power.  It  is  said  that  in  the  year  1844  a  million  and 
a  half  pilgrims  visited  the  shrine.  In  the  year  1 89 1 
a  commission  of  reputable  German  physicians  was 
invited  to  attend  and  to  give  their  verdict  as  to  the 
cures.  They  testified  as  to  eleven  extraordinary  cases 
for  which  they  were  unable  to  account.  Among  them 
was  a  case  of  the  consumption  of  the  optic  nerve,  one  of 
lupus,  another  of  the  loss  of  the  use  of  the  legs  and  arms 
on  account  of  rheumatism  of  the  joints,  a  case  of  St. 
Vitus'  dance,  the  blindness  of  an  eye  and  the  lameness 
of  an  arm  as  a  result  of  inflammation  of  the  brain,  a 
case  of  bone  consumption  of  the  spine,  and  another W 
inflammation  of  the  spinal  marrow.  When  such  cases 
are  attested  by  physicians  of  repute  in  our  own  day,  it 
is  impossible  to  doubt  the  evidence.  The  misfortune 
is  that  the  Church  claims  them  to  be  miracles. 

If  in  our  own  day  a  belief  in  the  virtue  of  an  old  coat 
can  produce  such  results,  we  have  but  to  imagine  our- 
selves in  Palestine  at  the  time  of  Jesus,  among  a  popu- 
lation always  on  the  verge  of  religious  mania,  to  realise 
that  with  those  who  recognised  him  as  a  prophet  gifted 
with  superhumc.'i  power,  or  possibly  as  the  great  Mes- 
siah himself,  there  was  virtually  no  limit  to  what  might 
happen  in  the  way  of  cure  as  the  result  of  suggestion, 
expectation,  and  belief. 

§   VIII:  Mark  i,  3S~39f  ^^^^  ^^»  4^-44 

The  unbounded  sympathy  which  Jesus  had  with 
human  misery  and  suffering  made  him  willing  to  use 
his  extraordinary  power  in  healing  many  diseases,  and 


Jesus  in  Capernaum  107 

yet  he  recognised  that  this  was  an  interference  with 
what  he  beHeved  to  be  his  legitimate  work.  The 
crowds,  too,  might  easily  attract  the  attention  of  Herod 
Antipas,  so  that  the  fate  of  John  the  Baptist  might 
overwhelm  him  before  he  had  accomplished  what  he 
hoped  to  do.  After  one  of  the  exciting  days  in  Caper- 
naum he  escaped  in  the  night  and  went  out  alone  into 
the  desolate  country.  Men  said  afterwards  that  it  was 
to  pray,  which  is  undoubtedly  true,  for  those  who  knew 
him  best  knew  that  he  prayed  much.  God  was  very 
real  to  his  mind  and  he  believed  that  God  had  com- 
missioned him  to  proclaim  the  good  news  of  the  coming 
of  the  Kingdom.  He  naturally  turned  to  him  for  a 
frequent  renewal  of  his  strength  and  courage,  for  the 
replenishing  of  his  spiritual  battery  with  new  divine 
power,  but  it  was  always  with  him  real  prayer,  not 
prayers,  the  opening  of  his  soul  to  the  divine  life  and 
not  the  repetition  of  fixed  formulas. 

In  the  morning  Simon  and  others  found  him  and 
hoped  to  win  him  back  to  Capernaum,  because  the 
crowd  would  see  more  of  him;  but  he  told  them  that 
he  had  come  out  in  order  to  go  upon  a  preaching  tour 
in  the  neighbouring  towns. 

§  IX:  Mark  i,  40-45;  Luke  v,  12-16;  Matt,  viii,  1-4 

It  was  during  the  preaching  tour  among  the  villages 
along  the  north-western  shore  of  the  Lake  of  Galilee 
that  Jesus  came  upon  the  leper  whose  disobedience 
afterwards  caused  him  so  much  trouble.  According  to 
the  account,  the  leper  begged  to  be  healed  and  "Jesus, 
moved  with  compassion,  put  forth  his  hand  and  touched 
him,  and  said  unto  him,  I  will;  be  thou  clean."  It  is 
very  difficult  for  us  to  believe  in  the  possibility  of  an 


io8  The  Historic  Jesus 

immediate  and  complete  cure  of  leprosy,  and  yet  it  is 
no  more  astonishing  than  the  cases  authenticated  in  the 
account  from  Treves,  while  the  cures  of  scrofula  by 
the  king's  touch  in  England,  through  all  the  generations 
from  the  days  of  Edward  the  Confessor  until  after  the 
times  of  William  the  Third,  and  attested  in  many  in- 
stances by  the  ablest  physicians  of  the  age,  make  us 
hesitate  to  affirm  that  anything  is  impossible  to  the 
power  of  expectation  and  belief,  especially  when  un- 
der the  influence  of  a  great  love  and  a  strong  will. 

The  leper  was  told  to  get  a  certificate  of  health  re- 
storing him  to  society,  as  required  by  the  law  (Lev.xiv), 
but  not  to  tell  how  he  had  been  healed.  Jesus  was  not 
claiming  to  be  the  Messiah,  nor  working  cures  to  prove 
that  he  was  the  Messiah,  but  he  had  learned  already 
that  it  was  necessary  to  avoid  notoriety  as  much  as 
possible.  As  the  man  did  not  heed  him,  but  published 
the  fact  of  his  cure,  Jesus  found  it  necessary  to  avoid 
Capernaum  for  a  while  and  even  to  keep  away  from  the 
smaller  towns,  but  his  reputation  was  already  estab- 
lished, and  crowds  began  to  gather  about  him  wherever 
he  went. 

§  X:  Mark  it,  1-12;  Luke  v,  17-26;  Matt,  ix,  1-8 

There  is  no  further  account  of  the  first  preaching  tour 
of  Jesus.  The  tradition  was  already  lost,  except  that 
probably  some  of  the  things  which  he  said  survived  in 
the  collection  of  "Sayings,"  without  reference  to  time 
or  place. 

Mark  hurries  on  to  narrate  the  beginning  of  conflict, 
which  naturally  left  a  strong  impression. 

After  an  absence  of  "some  days,"  more  probably 
several  weeks,  Jesus  thought  that  he  might  venture 


Jesus  in   Capernaum  109 

to  return  to  Capernaum,  but  the  news  of  his  coming  at 
once  brought  together  the  crowd,  so  that  the  house 
was  filled  to  overflowing  and  Jesus  preached  to  them. 

Mark  says  that  there  were  some  scribes  among  the 
people  present.  This  was  afterwards  enlarged  by  Luke 
into  the  statement  that  they  together  with  some 
Pharisees  had  come  from  every  town  of  Galilee  and 
Judaea  and  Jerusalem,  which  is  altogether  improbable; 
for  the  reputation  of  Jesus  could  hardly  have  extended 
to  Jerusalem  at  that  time,  nor  could  there  have  been 
quite  so  early  an  organised  attempt  to  investigate  the 
new  movement.  The  scribes  who  were  present  came 
out  of  curiosity.  They  were  a  class  of  men  which  had 
grown  up  since  the  return  of  the  Jews  from  Babylon 
as  the  students  and  authoritative  teachers  of  the  law. 
Those  who  came  back  from  Babylon  were  fanatical 
devotees  of  the  law  as  it  was  set  forth  in  the  Book  of 
Deuteronomy.  Soon  after  their  return  it  was  made 
much  more  elaborate  and  explicit  mainly  in  the  new 
Book  of  Leviticus  and,  from  that  time,  for  four  hundred 
years,  they  had  been  adding  appUcations,  decisions, 
and  details,  known  collectively  as  the  "traditions  of 
the  elders"  and  held  to  be  of  equal  authority  with  the 
law. 

We  read  that,  in  the  midst  of  his  impassioned,  enthusi- 
astic, impressive  talk,  there  was  a  sudden  interruption. 
Four  men  had  brought  a  palsied  man  to  be  healed  and, 
as  they  could  not  get  through  the  crowd,  had  let  him 
down  through  the  roof.  Jesus  realised  the  situation 
at  a  glance,  the  helplessness  of  the  man,  with  the  strong 
expectancy  and  belief  both  of  himself  and  of  those  who 
brought  him.  He  seems  to  have  stopped  in  his  talk 
long  enough  to  say,  "Son,  thy  sins  be  forgiven  thee," 
and  then  to  have  gone  on  talking.     Soon,  however, 


no  The  Historic  Jesus 

he  became  conscious  of  unrest,  of  signs  of  disapproval, 
with  frowns  on  some  faces,  the  shaking  of  heads,  low 
murmurs  of  conversation.  It  was  evident  what  was 
passing  in  many  minds. 

He  had  presumed  to  declare  that  the  man's  sins  were 
forgiven,  but  God  alone,  these  men  held,  could  forgive 
sins  and  only  in  the  way  provided  in  the  law.  Was  it 
not  divinely  revealed  in  the  fourth,  fifth,  and  sixteenth 
chapters  of  the  Book  of  Leviticus  just  how  sins  could 
be  forgiven,  what  sacrifices  were  necessary,  and  how  they 
were  to  be  offered?  Did  not  forgiveness  have  to  be 
paid  for,  and  was  not  blood  the  only  coin  which  passed 
current  at  the  divine  court?  How  did  a  man  dare  to 
talk  about  forgiveness,  when  none  of  the  conditions 
had  been  complied  with?  What  would  become  of  the 
temple  and  the  priesthood  if  such  teaching  should  pre- 
vail, and  would  not  religion  be  destroyed  if  any  one 
might  say  to  another,  "Thy  sins  be  forgiven  thee " ? 
Surely  this  was  heresy.  These  men  had  been  terribly 
shocked,  but  Jesus  saw  at  once  what  was  passing  in  their 
minds.  He  stopped  again  and  asked  them  a  question : 
"Which  is  easier,  to  say  to  the  sick  of  the  palsy.  Thy 
sins  be  forgiven  thee;  or  to  say.  Arise,  and  take  up  thy 
bed,  and  walk?" 

His  questioi  indicates  certain  beliefs,  which  were 
most  extraordinary  and  entirely  new;  for,  in  the  first 
place,  he  seems  to  have  recognised  an  intimate  con- 
nection in  some  cases  between  moral  and  physical  evil, 
which  no  one  heeded  at  the  time,  and  which  only  after 
the  lapse  of  eighteen  centuries  is  beginning  to  seriously 
engage  the  attention  of  intelligent  men,  who  recognise 
that  the  passions  of  the  mind  have  their  reactions  in 
lesions  and  weaknesses  of  the  body.  Many  a  great 
truth  was  with  Jesus  the  result  of  clear  and  direct 


Jesus  in  Capernaum  iii 

intuition  and  not  of  the  slow  and  patient  process  of 
reasoning.  But,  along  with  this,  there  went  another 
belief.  Forgiveness  could  not  be  the  result  of  a  judicial 
process,  which  measured  the  transgression,  assigned 
the  penalty,  and  accepted  a  substitution,  a  payment,  or 
a  compromise;  but,  quite  the  contrary,  for,  since  sin 
was  an  enslavement  of  body  and  mind,  forgiveness  must 
be  the  emancipation  of  both  body  and  mind  from  the 
power  of  evil  habit,  passion,  and  desire,  not  the  remission 
of  penalty,  but  the  deliverance  from  bonds.  The  new 
desire  for  purity,  fidelity,  and  graciousness  of  life  set 
free  the  soul  and  with  it  there  would  follow  in  time  the 
reconstruction  of  the  body.  Any  man,  seeing  the 
evidence  of  a  moral  change  in  a  fellow-man,  could 
encourage  him  with  the  welcome  words,  "Thy  sins  be 
forgiven  thee."  Such  was  the  belief  of  Jesus.  He  did 
not  see  all  the  logical  consequences  of  it,  for  it  was 
entirely  subversive  of  the  Jewish  religion  and  of  all 
other  religions  which  make  forgiveness  a  legal  trans- 
action and  part  of  a  system.  It  was  no  wonder  that 
those  who  saw  some  of  its  bearings  were  shocked  and 
scandalised.  But  Jesus  said  to  them:  "That  ye  may 
know  that  the  Son  of  Man  hath  power  on  earth  to  for- 
give sins,  (he  saith  to  the  sick  of  the  palsy,)  I  say  unto 
thee.  Arise,  and  take  up  thy  bed  and  go  thy  way  into 
thine  house."  And  immediately  he  arose,  took  up  the 
bed,  and  went  forth  before  them  all.  Jesus  had  demon- 
strated the  truth  of  his  teaching  and  the  fact  of  his 
power.  There  need  be  no  doubt  but  that  the  cure  really 
took  place.  Out  of  thirty-eight  cases  of  cures  attested 
by  German  physicians  at  Treves,  in  the  year  1891, 
one  third  were  cures  of  lameness. 

The  expression  "Son  of  Man "  has  given  rise  to  much 
misunderstanding  and  controversy.     Jesus  spoke  Ara- 


1 12  The  Historic  Jesus 

maic,  in  which  the  word  for  "man "  is  a  compound  word 
and  means  Hterally  "son  of  man."  There  never  would 
have  been  any  misunderstanding  but  for  its  use  in  the 
Book  of  Daniel  and  the  interpretation  which  had  been 
put  upon  it  as  there  used.  The  supposed  Daniel  did 
not  mention  a  Messiah,  but  made  a  man  the  symbol  of 
the  expected  Jewish  empire,  as  the  beasts  had  been 
symbols  of  the  preceding  empires.  The  popular  mind 
misunderstood  the  symbolism  and,  in  the  time  of  Jesus, 
many  people  in  Palestine  really  imagined  that  the 
"Son  of  Man"  of  the  Book  of  Daniel  referred  to  a  per- 
sonal Messiah. 

The  whole  controversy  is,  therefore,  as  to  whether 
Jesus  so  meant  it,  or  whether  in  speaking  the  language 
of  the  people  who  heard  him,  he  used  the  only  available 
expression  for  "man."  We  must  adopt  the  latter  alter- 
native, for  he  certainly  was  not  claiming  to  be  the 
Messiah,  nor  to  use  the  prerogative  of  the  Messiah  in 
declaring  the  forgiveness  of  sins.  No  one  in  that  crowd 
would  have  doubted  for  a  moment  that  the  Messiah 
could  exercise  judicial  rights  and  forgive  sins.  What 
surprised  and  shocked  them  was  that  a  man  should 
assume  to  exercise  such  rights,  and  that  neither  they 
nor  any  of  the  Christians  afterwards  put  any  other 
construction  upon  the  event  is  evident  from  Matthew's 
Gospel,  in  which  it  is  said  that  "they  marvelled  and 
glorified  God,  who  had  given  such  power  unto  men." 

§  XI:  Mark,  ii,  13-17;  Luke  v,  27-32;  Matt,  ix,  Q-13 

We  are  not  to  think  of  the  events  narrated  by  Mark  as 
given  in  the  order  in  which  they  occurred,  but  that  he 
took  isolated  accounts  which  passed  current  in  tradi- 
tion and  arranged  them  as  best  he  could.     Luke  and 


Jesus  in  Capernaum  113 

Matthew,  who  followed  his  general  outline,  allowed 
themselves  entire  liberty  in  changing  the  order  when- 
ever it  seemed  to  them  that  some  account  belonged  or 
would  be  more  effective  in  some  other  connection. 
During  the  early  days  in  Galilee,  among  the  multitude 
which  gathered  upon  the  shore  of  the  lake,  Jesus  felt 
himself  attracted  to  a  man  in  the  crowd  and  asked  him 
to  join  the  company  of  his  special  friends.  The  man's 
name  was  Levi,  but,  in  accordance  with  a  custom 
which  had  become  quite  common,  he  had  adopted  the 
Greek  name  "Matthew,"  as  his  occupation  brought 
him  much  into  contact  with  foreigners.  He  was  a 
collector  of  customs  for  Herod  Antipas.  This  made 
him  a  man  thoroughly  hated  and  despised  by  the 
Jews,  who  classified  all  collectors  of  taxes  or  customs 
with  harlots,  claiming  that  all  taxes  were  payable  to 
God  only  through  the  priests  at  the  temple.  Along 
with  this  theological  odium  there  went  the  belief,  no 
doubt  often  well  grounded,  that  these  men  enriched 
themselves  by  dishonesty.  Jesus,  in  the  exercise  of  his 
grand  consciousness  of  freedom,  looked  upon  men  as 
men,  without  reference  to  the  categories  in  which  their 
fellow-men  placed  them,  or  the  epithets  which  they 
bestowed  upon  them. 

This  man  was  certainly  very  much  impressed  by 
Jesus  and  greatly  pleased  to  be  asked  to  become  one 
of  his  companions.  He  gave  a  supper  and  naturally 
invited  his  friends  in  the  custom  house,  together  with 
Jesus  and  his  disciples.  This  was  a  new  shock  to  the 
scribes  and  Pharisees,  for  there  were  few  things  more 
dreadful  to  their  minds  than  to  eat  at  the  same  table 
with  people  less  pious  than  they  thought  themselves. 
They  had  the  sanction  of  Scripture,  too,  for  their  objec- 
tion, for  they  read  in  the  first  Psalm,  "Blessed  is  the 


114  The  Historic  Jesus 

man  that  hath  not  walked  in  the  counsel  of  the  ungodly 
nor  stood  in  the  way  of  sinners,  and  hath  not  sat  in  the 
seat  of  the  scornful."  They  ventured  to  ask  the  dis- 
ciples how  it  was  that  their  IVIaster  would  so  forget  all 
propriety  and  respectability  as  to  eat  and  drink  at  the 
same  table  with  such  wicked  people.  The  disciples 
could  not  tell.  They  already  loved  their  Master  and 
did  what  they  saw  him  do,  without  stopping  to  think 
what  people  would  say,  but  Jesus  answered  the  ques- 
tion with  sarcasm,  saying,  "They  that  are  whole  have 
no  need  of  a  physician,  but  they  that  are  sick."  If 
these  men  were  as  bad  as  the  Pharisees  held  them  to  be 
they  certainly  needed  some  one  to  help  them. 

This  was  the  grand  attitude  of  Jesus  towards  human- 
ity. In  the  greatness  of  his  heart  he  felt  drawn  towards 
the  men  who  were  despised  and  neglected  and  who  had 
therefore  lost  heart  and  courage.  There  was  good  news 
for  these  men.  The  great  Kingdom  of  God  was  coming 
and  with  it  a  glorious  relief  for  those  who  were  tired  and 
discouraged.  Many  of  them  would  surely  welcome  the 
good  news  and  be  glad  to  fit  themselves  for  citizenship. 
He  felt  it  his  mission  to  call  sinners,  to  call  them  to  the 
Kingdom  of  God,  not,  as  the  Christians  said  afterwards, 
misunderstanding  him,  to  call  them  "to  repentance." 
These  words  were  an  addition,  for  Jesus  did  not  go  to 
the  despised,  neglected,  down- trodden,  and  forlorn  with 
the  terrors  of  judgment,  but  with  the  good  news  of  the 
coming  joy. 

§  XII:  Mark,  it,  18-22;  Luke  v,  33-39;  Matt,  ix,  14-IT 

One  of  the  remarkable  features  of  the  life  of  Jesus 
was  his  entire  naturalness  and  his  freedom  from  all  the 
conventionalities  of  Judaism.     Fasting  had  not  origi- 


Jesus  in  Capernaum  115 

nally  been  a  Jewish  custom.  After  the  return  from 
exile  it  had  been  appointed  once  a  year,  on  the  Day  of 
Atonement,  and  special  fasts  were  ordered  when  the 
Fall  rains  were  late,  upon  the  general  theory  that  the 
discomfort  of  the  nation  put  a  pressure  upon  God  which 
compelled  him  to  send  the  rain. 

In  addition  to  this,  the  Pharisees  had  fallen  into  the 
habit  of  voluntary  fasting,  as  the  means  of  obtaining 
renown  among  men  and  favour  from  God.  John  the 
Baptist,  too,  had  been  an  exponent  of  asceticism  and 
had  laid  upon  his  followers  rules  for  fasting.  Repre- 
sentatives of  both  these  classes  were  shocked  that  the 
new  Master  did  not  establish  rules  for  fasting  among 
his  disciples.  They  came  and  asked  Jesus  why  it  was 
so,  which  gave  him  an  opportunity  for  declaring  one  of 
his  broad  general  principles.  Fasting  coiild  not  be  an 
enforced,  artificial,  arbitrary  thing,  a  matter  of  rules. 
It  was  the  natural  expression  and  concomitant  of  grief 
and  distress.  Any  other  fasting  than  this  natural  kind, 
when  the  heart  was  so  full  that  one  could  not  eat,  was  an 
artificial  thing  and  utter  foolishness.  Jesus  and  his 
disciples  were  living  in  the  glad  expectation  of  the 
immediate  coming  of  the  Kingdom  of  God.  They 
were  full  of  joy,  like  the  friends  of  the  bridegroom  at  a 
wedding,  and  fasting  would  be  out  of  keeping  with 
their  mood.  There  is  no  allegory  in  these  words.  He 
did  not  refer  to  himself  as  "the  bridegroom, "  nor  imply 
thereby  that  he  knew  himself  to  be  the  Messiah.  It  is 
not  possible  that  he  added  the  words  about  the  bride- 
groom's being  taken  away,  after  which  his  disciples 
would  fast ;  for,  not  only  was  he  not  referring  to  himself 
as  the  bridegroom,  but  he  did  not  expect  to  be  taken 
away.  On  the  contrary,  he  expected  to  enter  with 
his  friends  into  the  joy  and  glory  of  the  Kingdom  so 


ii6  The  Historic  Jesus 

soon  to  come.  In  later  days  the  Christians  adopted 
the  custom  of  fasting  from  John's  disciples  and  from 
Pharisaic  precedent  and  then  imagined  that  Jesus  had 
predicted  his  death  and  had  sanctioned  the  custom  of 
fasting  after  that  should  occur.  We  must  conclude 
that  these  words  are  an  interpolation  to  establish  the 
sanction  of  his  supposed  authority  for  the  later  custom. 

Mark  thought  that  this  was  a  convenient  place  for 
introducing  two  of  the  great  sayings  of  Jesus,  which  will 
stand  for  ever  as  evidences  of  his  clear  intuition  and  as 
the  Magna  Charta  of  all  righteous  souls  which  are 
struggHng  to  emancipate  their  fellow-men  from  the 
slavery  of  conventionality  and  tradition.  You  cannot 
adjust  the  broader  principles  of  a  larger  life  to  the  no- 
tions and  customs  of  a  worn-out  system,  you  cannot 
force  the  ferment  of  a  new  enthusiasm  back  within  the 
fetters  of  an  old  routine.  There  can  be  no  patching 
of  the  new  upon  the  old,  no  cramping  of  the  new  within 
the  old.  The  Kingdom  of  God  is  coming,  it  is  all  in 
the  future.  The  old  beliefs  and  methods  did  not  bring 
it.     They  are  not  to  be  restored  but  outgrown. 

All  this  and  much  more  is  contained  in  these  wonder- 
ful words  of  Jesus,  but  it  is  hardly  possible  that  he 
realised  the  full  import  of  what  he  said,  for  he  does  not 
seem  to  have  thought  at  that  time  that  the  Jewish 
religion  was  wholly  inadequate  for  human  needs  and 
that  its  days  were  virtually  over.  It  seemed  to  him, 
the  rather,  that  he  was  bringing  it  back  to  its  ptu-ity 
and  strength  before  the  accumulation  of  the  "traditions 
of  the  elders"  had  made  of  it  a  burden  and  a  blight. 
These  words  were,  therefore,  the  result  of  a  clear  intui- 
tion, a  flash  of  religious  genius,  which  becomes  a  revela- 
tion to  men  whose  duller  perceptions  would  not  have 
enabled  them  to  see  the  truth.     How  dull  the  average 


Jesus  in  Capernaum  117 

mind  is  and  how  impervious  to  spiritual  truth  and  to 
all  general  principles  and  broad  generalisations  is 
illustrated  by  the  addition  of  the  thirty-ninth  verse  to 
the  fifth  chapter  of  Luke's  Gospel. 

Some  copyist  in  one  of  the  early  centuries  imagined 
that  Jesus  was  recommending  new  wine,  and  wrote  his 
comment  on  the  margin  to  the  effect  that  no  man  of  any 
discrimination  would  drink  new  wine  when  he  could 
get  old  wine:  "for  he  saith,  The  old  is  better."  Some 
copyist  after  him  copied  his  marginal  note  into  the 
text  and  so  it  has  come  down  as  part  of  the  authorised 
text,  but  it  is  lacking  in  many  manuscripts  and  shotdd 
be  omitted. 

§  XIII:  Mark  it,  23-28;  Luke  vi,  1-5;  Matt,  xii,  1-8 

The  clear  perceptions  of  Jesus  as  to  right  and  wrong, 
apart  from  all  the  fictions  of  conventionality,  brought 
him  inevitably  into  conflict  with  the  exponents  of  legal 
and  mechanical  religion.  It  is  related  that  on  one 
occasion  when  passing  with  his  disciples  through  a 
wheat-field,  the  latter,  being  hungry,  plucked  some  of 
the  ears  of  wheat  and  ate  them.  This  had  been  es- 
pecially allowed  by  the  law,  as  set  forth  in  the  Book  of 
Deuteronomy  (xxiii,  25)  and  adopted  in  the  time  of 
Josiah.  In  later  centuries  the  multiplied  traditions 
of  the  elders  concerning  the  Sabbath  included  it  among 
the  things  forbidden  on  that  day.  A  complete  history 
of  the  Jewish  Sabbath  would  be  very  interesting  read- 
ing, but  it  would  be  impossible  now  to  supply  details 
from  its  earliest  days.  As  it  has  to  do  with  rest  from 
ordinary  labour,  it  could  have  grown  up  only  in  a 
settled  agricultural  community.  The  ancestors  of 
Jews  and  IsraeHtes,  so  long  as  they  were  nomads  of  the 


ii8  The  Historic  Jesus 

desert,  had  no  occasion  for  it  and  knew  nothing  of  it. 
As  they  settled  in  the  land  of  Canaan  and  gradually 
adopted  the  ways  of  the  higher  civilisation  they  fell 
naturally  into  the  observance  of  its  established  festi- 
vals. Among  these  was  the  Sabbath,  which  seems  to 
have  originated  in  Babylon,  or  Chaldea,  in  very  an- 
cient times,  as  an  unlucky  day;  later  it  became  con- 
fused with  astrological  notions  and  assigned  to  the  god 
afterwards  imagined  to  correspond  with  Saturn;  and 
still  later  it  became  mixed  up  with  moon  worship. 
At  any  rate,  there  was  a  Canaanitish  festival  on  the 
days  of  the  new  moon  and  full  moon  and  the  days  half- 
way between  the  two.  These  weekly  festivals  the 
Israelites  took  over  from  the  Canaanites,  with  the 
cessation  of  labour  and  consequent  opportunities  of 
feasting  and  joy.  In  course  of  time  priests  and  pro- 
phets had  gradually  made  the  observance  of  the  day 
into  a  distinctive  feature  of  Jewish  life  and,  during  the 
exile,  the  zealous,  enthusiastic,  and  fanatical  people 
recognised  it  as  a  means  for  keeping  up  the  distinctive- 
ness and  separateness  of  the  Jews  from  other  people 
and  therefore  multiplied  the  rules  for  its  observance. 
On  their  return  from  exile  these  rules  were  incorporated 
in  the  newly  codified  law,  under  the  pretence  that  they 
had  existed  fro-n  the  earliest  days,  and  are  to  be  found 
in  Exodus  xvi,  23-30;  xxi,  12-17,  xxxv,  1-3;  and  in 
Numbers  xv,  32-36.  They  even  went  so  far  as  to 
invent  a  reason  for  the  observance  by  materialising  an 
Oriental  myth  of  creation  (Gen.  i,  i-ii,  4a)  in  which 
they  taught  that  Jahveh  himself  observed  the  Sabbath 
by  resting  on  that  day  from  the  work  of  making  the 
world.  After  the  exile  the  hardening  and  narrowing 
process  had  gone  on  until  by  the  time  of  Jesus  the 
scribes  were  able  to  specify  thirty-nine  kinds  of  labour 


Jesus  in   Capernaum  119 

which  might  not  be  performed  on  the  Sabbath,  of 
which  reaping  was  one,  and  these,  together  with  the 
enormous  mass  of  opinions  and  special  applications, 
had  transformed  the  original  institution  of  a  day  of 
rest  and  happiness  into  an  intolerable  burden  for  the 
people  who  simply  could  not  keep  it  entirely,  while 
those  who  were  learned  in  the  law  were  able  to  evade 
its  provisions  by  a  judicious  application  of  the  tricks  of 
casuistry.  The  healthy  moral  consciousness  of  Jesus 
revolted  against  this  colossal  absurdity.  He  saw  that 
the  human  perceptions  of  right  and  wrong  had  no 
chance  to  act  when  all  life  was  reduced  to  the  keeping 
of  rules  and  that  men  were  deprived  of  all  moral  in- 
centive and  the  exercise  of  all  moral  judgment  when 
bound  in  slavery  to  a  legal  system.  We  have  an  indi- 
cation of  the  wonderful  influence  of  his  presence  and 
spirit  over  the  men  who  knew  him  best.  He  had  not 
taught  them  to  disregard  the  law  of  the  Sabbath,  but 
their  manhood  had  grown  by  association  with  him, 
so  that  they  naturally  plucked  the  wheat  and  ate  it, 
without  thinking  that  they  were  breaking  the  law  and 
that  the  penalty  would  have  been  death,  if  the  Roman 
government  had  not  mercifully  curtailed  some  of  the 
religious  privileges  of  the  Jews. 

When  Jesus  was  appealed  to  on  account  of  this 
flagrant  disregard  for  law,  he  referred  his  questioners  to 
a  precedent  recorded  in  their  Scriptures  (i  Sam.  xxi) 
relating  that  David  and  his  friends  had  eaten  the  sac- 
rificial bread  from  the  temple  at  Nob,  because  they 
were  hungry  and  could  get  no  other  food.  The  argu- 
ment was  perfectly  evident.  Human  need  took  pre- 
cedence of  rules.  This  was  astonishing  teaching  for 
Pharisees  to  hear  and  Jesus  enforced  it  with  another 
of  his  grand  principles,  "The  Sabbath  was  made  for 


120  The  Historic  Jesus 

man  and  not  man  for  the  Sabbath. "  It  was  an  institu- 
tion admirably  adapted  to  man's  rest  and  comfort  and 
happiness,  but  the  Pharisees,  by  their  multiplied  rules, 
had  virtually  reduced  men  to  slavery  under  it.  They 
must  escape  from  this  slavery  and  assert  their  manhood. 
Using  their  intelligence,  their  judgment,  their  moral 
consciousness,  they  must  determine  how  they  would 
get  the  greatest  good  out  of  an  institution  which  he 
declared  was  made  for  them,  for,  he  said,  "The  son  of 
man  is  lord  also  of  the  Sabbath. " 

This  is  the  expression  "Son  of  Man"  again.  It 
means  "man, "  as  already  explained,  and  nothing  more. 
Otherwise  we  lose  the  whole  force  of  the  teaching  of 
Jesus  on  this  subject.  The  Sabbath  was  made  for 
man,  therefore  man  was  lord  of  the  Sabbath  and, 
instead  of  obeying  rules,  must  use  his  best  judgment. 
If  Jesus  had  been  claiming  to  be  the  Messiah  and  as  such 
to  legislate  and,  as  it  were,  to  use  his  prerogative  to 
supersede  the  law  by  granting  an  indulgence  to  the 
disciples,  no  one  would  have  doubted  that  the  Messiah 
had  this  right,  but  Jesus  was  not  claiming  to  be  the 
Messiah,  nor  would  the  Pharisees,  with  whom  he  was 
talking,  have  recognised  any  such  claim. 

On  the  contrary,  he  was  laying  down  a  principle 
always  and  e""'erywhere  applicable,  that  man  in  the 
exercise  of  his  moral  judgment  is  superior  to  any  of  the 
rules  of  human  conventionality  and  lord  of  the  situa- 
tion. This  was  too  large  a  truth  for  any  of  the  people 
of  that  day  to  appreciate  or  understand  and  the  early 
Christians  did  not  understand  it.  They  thought,  as 
they  considered  this  traditional  conversation,  that 
Jesus  had  been  simply  exercising  the  right  of  the  Mes- 
siah to  change  established  legislation.  So  strongly  were 
they  convinced  of  this  that  the  later  Gospels  of  Luke 


Jesus  in  Capernaum  121 

and  Matthew  suppressed  his  great  words,  "The 
Sabbath  was  made  for  man,"  etc.,  and  left  the  im- 
pression that,  as  David  had  persuaded  the  priest  to 
give  him  the  consecrated  bread,  so  David's  great  suc- 
cessor had  permitted  the  disciples  to  pluck  wheat  on 
the  Sabbath.  Matthew  goes  even  further  and  con- 
structs an  argument  which  he  puts  into  the  mouth  of 
Jesus,  that,  as  the  priests  in  the  temple  are  blameless, 
although,  in  the  discharge  of  their  duties,  they  break 
the  law,  so  he,  the  Messiah,  who  is  greater  than  the 
temple,  has  a  right  to  alter  or  suspend  the  law. 

Thus,  by  the  persistence  of  the  leaven  of  the  Phari- 
sees, the  teaching  of  Jesus  was  obscured  and  lost,  but, 
thanks  to  the  intelligent  method  of  the  "Higher  Criti- 
cism, "  we  can  now  get  back  of  the  misinterpretations 
of  the  early  days  and,  coming  nearer  to  the  real  Jesus, 
rescue  many  of  the  clear  perceptions  and  great  principles 
which  made  his  life  the  supreme  power  for  the  moral 
and  spiritual  evolution  of  mankind. 

§  XIV:  Mark  iii,  1-6;  Luke  vi,  6-11;  Matt,  xii,  Q-14 

The  extraordinary  courage  of  Jesus  has  never  been 
realised,  the  coiu-age  to  act  in  accordance  with  his 
conscience  and  judgment  and  under  the  impulses  of  his 
heart,  regardless  of  all  the  laws,  rules,  conventionalities, 
and  customs  of  his  environment. 

We  sometimes,  in  our  own  day,  admire  the  courage 
of  a  man  who  in  obeying  his  conscience  defies  public 
opinion,  but  in  Jesus*  time  public  opinion  was  crystal- 
lised into  a  legal  code  believed  to  be  of  divine  origin, 
many  deviations  from  which  were  punishable  by  death. 

He  had  already  aroused  great  hostility  by  his  declara- 
ion  concerning  the  Sabbath,  because,  if  its  observance 


122  The  Historic  Jesus 

were  to  be  left  to  each  man's  judgment,  the  law  was 
virtually  abrogated.  He  determined  not  to  wait  for 
another  attack,  but  to  turn  upon  his  enemies.  In  the 
synagogue,  very  likely  upon  the  same  Sabbath,  was  a 
man  with  a  withered  hand.  The  Gospel  of  the  Hebrews 
says  that  he  was  a  stone-mason,  and  that  he  had  asked 
Jesus  to  heal  him  in  order  that  he  might  support  his 
family.  However  that  may  be,  the  Pharisees,  as  soon 
as  they  discovered  the  man,  immediately  wondered 
whether  Jesus  would  dare  to  apply  the  principle  which 
he  had  so  recently  declared,  by  healing  him  on  the 
Sabbath.  The  law  did  not  allow  anything  whatso- 
ever to  be  done  for  a  sick  man  on  the  Sabbath,  unless 
it  was  certain  that  without  help  he  would  lose  his  life 
before  sunset. 

Jesus  saw  what  was  passing  in  their  minds  and, 
bidding  the  man  stand  forth,  asked  them  a  straight 
question:  "Is  it  lawful  to  do  good  on  the  Sabbath  day, 
or  to  do  evil;  to  save  life,  or  to  kill?"  They  could  not 
answer,  because  the  law  taught  that  it  was  not  lawful 
to  do  anything,  either  good  or  bad,  on  the  Sabbath, 
and  yet  they  did  not  like  to  put  themselves  on 
record  before  the  people  by  declaring  that  the  law  for- 
bade doing  good.  Jesus  was  angry  with  them,  because 
they  had  let  thei-  intelligence  and  conscience  become  so 
deadened  by  devotion  to  the  law  that  they  could  not 
tell  right  from  wrong,  and  he  grieved  for  the  common 
people  on  accoimt  of  their  stolid  docility  which  yielded 
blindly  to  Pharisaic  control. 

He  bade  the  man  stretch  forth  his  hand  and  it  was 
healed.  He  had  openly  broken  the  law  and  the  Phari- 
sees were  both  angry  and  alarmed.  If  things  were  to  go 
on  in  this  way,  if  the  people  were  to  be  taught  that  the 
law  might  thus  be  lightly  set  aside,  they  would  lose 


Jesus   in  Capernaum  123 

their  reputation  for  sanctity  and  their  power  of  control 
over  the  masses.  Something  must  be  done  and  done 
quickly  to  stop  the  work  of  Jesus. 

The  earliest  tradition  said  that  they  tried  to  arrange 
with  some  of  the  officers  of  Herod  Antipas,  which  is 
quite  probable.  The  only  reason  which  they  could 
urge  would  be  political,  that  Jesus  was  exciting  the 
masses  and  might  create  a  revolt.  The  most  that  they 
could  hope  for  would  be  his  arrest  and  imprisonment, 
for  there  was  no  groimd  on  which  Herod  could  put  him 
to  death.  That  they  had  some  success  is  evident  from 
the  fact  that  Jesus  increased  his  caution,  avoiding  the 
larger  places  and  sometimes  leaving  the  dominion  of 
Herod  altogether. 

§  XV:  Mark  in,  7-12;  Luke  vi,  17-19;  Matt,  xii,  15-21 

Jesus  withdrew  again  from  public  places  and  sought 
with  his  disciples  the  solitude  along  the  shore  of  the 
lake.  The  first  time  it  had  been  in  order  to  escape 
from  the  crowd  attracted  by  his  healings.  This  time 
it  was  to  avoid  the  rising  tide  of  hostility.  That  truth 
should  ever  arouse  hostility  and  that  the  great  helpers 
of  mankind  should  in  all  lands  and  in  all  ages  have 
been  denounced  and  persecuted  is  one  of  the  strange 
phenomena  of  history,  and  yet  its  causes  are  not  hard 
to  find.  Real  religion  is  undoubtedly  a  faith  which 
works  by  love  and  purifies  the  heart,  developing  a  spon- 
taneity of  goodness.  There  has  always  been  some  of 
it,  wherever  individuals  have  reached  a  certain  degree 
of  intelligence  and  moral  power,  and  it  has  increased  in 
volume  with  the  passing  of  the  centuries,  but  it  has 
necessarily  been  confined  to  the  minority  and  could 
never  become  the  established  and  official  religion. 


124  The  Historic  Jesus 

The  latter,  being  an  adjustment  to  the  lesser  capaci- 
ties of  the  multitude,  has  been  assumed  to  be  the  real 
thing  and  to  rest  upon  divine  authority.  When  a 
people  is  satisfied  with  its  substitute  for  religion,  whether 
it  be  a  sacrificial  system,  a  complicated  legalism, 
or  an  elaborated  dogmatism,  it  will  fight  to  the  bitter 
end  against  any  one  who  throws  discredit  upon  it  by 
suggesting  something  better,  and  there  are  always  two 
classes  to  do  the  fighting,  the  leaders  and  the  led.  The 
former  fight  for  the  preservation  of  their  prestige  and 
power,  while  the  latter  resist  the  necessity  of  thinking 
and  the  readjustment  of  their  mental  machinery  con- 
cerning questions  which  they  thought  were  settled  for- 
ever. We  who  have  seen  the  hostility  of  the  devotees 
of  official  and  established  religion  against  every  ray  of 
light  thrown  upon  the  problems  of  life  diuing  the  whole 
course  of  the  nineteenth  century  shall  hardly  wonder  at 
the  hostility  of  scribes  and  Pharisees  to  Jesus  more  than 
eighteen  centiuies  ago.  They  were  not  bad  men  and, 
although  their  system  offered  large  possibilities  for 
hypocrisy,  most  of  them  were  honest  in  their  convictions 
and  conscientious  in  their  actions,  but  they  illustrated 
the  saying  that  it  is  a  dangerous  thing  for  ignorant  men 
to  be  too  conscientious. 

They  were  sure  that  their  system  was  the  only  true 
and  possible  religion  and  that  it  was  their  duty  to  get 
Jesus  out  of  the  way  in  order  to  save  Judaism.  Jesus 
bowed,  however,  at  this  time  before  the  growing  storm, 
but  was  unable  to  escape  from  the  crowd,  which  fol- 
lowed him  from  various  motives,  some  to  listen  to  his 
wonderful  words,  others  for  the  sake  of  excitement, 
and  many  to  be  healed. 

It  is  probably  true  that  the  throng  became  intoler- 
able, so  that  he  was  obliged  to  escape  by  boat,  but  we 


Jesus   in    Capernaum  125 

are  not  told  where  he  went.  It  is  not  probable,  how- 
ever, that  at  this  time  people  came  from  Judaea  and 
Jerusalem  or  from  Tyre  and  Sidon.  The  fact  of  the 
crowd  had  left  a  great  impression,  but  the  account  had 
grown  by  repetition.  It  looks  as  if  the  original  Gospel 
had  not  included  people  from  this  wider  area,  but  that 
the  eighth  verse  of  the  third  chapter  of  Mark's  Gospel 
was  a  later  interpolation  to  bring  it  up  to  the  state- 
ment in  Luke's  Gospel.  By  the  time  that  Matthew's 
Gospel  was  written  the  Christians  had  come  to  believe 
that  everything  which  occurred  in  the  life  of  Jesus  was 
in  fulfilment  of  some  ancient  prophecy,  so  that  neither 
he  nor  the  multitude  acted  of  their  own  volition,  but 
under  the  influence  of  divine  power  acting  upon  them 
from  without,  in  order  that  Scripture  might  be  ful- 
filled. They  found  a  passage  in  the  writings  of  the 
unknown  prophet  of  Babylon,  called  "the  second 
Isaiah,"  which  they  supposed  referred  to  a  Messiah 
and  thought  applicable  to  Jesus;  but  they  were  most 
unfortunate  in  their  interpretation  of  Scripture,  for 
the  passage  which  they  quoted  had  reference  only  to 
the  pious  individuals  among  the  exiled  population, 
called  collectively  by  the  prophet  "the  Servant  of 
Jahveh, "  and  to  the  astonishing  results  which  he 
thought  would  accrue  from  their  fidelity,  in  the  con- 
version of  the  nations  to  Judaism.  The  passage 
contained  no  suggestion  of  a  Messiah. 

§  XVI:  Mark  in,  13-19;  Luke  vi,  12-16;  Matt,  x,  1-4 

Jesus  was  apparently  often  much  distressed  in  the 
early  days  of  his  ministry  at  being  diverted  from  what 
he  felt  to  be  his  legitimate  work  of  proclaiming  the 
speedy  coming  of  the  Kingdom  of  God,  by  devoting 


126  The  Historic  Jesus 

so  much  time  to  the  healing  of  diseases.  His  great 
heart  would  not  let  him  refuse  to  use  his  power  for  the 
relief  of  men's  bodies,  and  yet  the  burden  which  weighed 
upon  him  was  the  healing  of  their  souls,  by  arousing 
them  to  a  complete  moral  equipment  for  citizenship  in 
the  coming  Kingdom.  It  was  discouraging,  too,  to  see 
the  crowd  come  and  go  and  apparently  carry  away 
nothing  for  the  enlargement  of  their  ideals  or  the  moral 
enrichment  of  their  lives. 

Thus  the  beginning  of  a  sad  disillusionment  was 
added  to  the  grief  caused  by  the  rising  tide  of  official 
hostility.  Under  these  circumstances  one  needs  sym- 
pathy, an  intimate  circle  of  friends  to  understand  one 
better  than  is  possible  with  the  crowd,  to  enter  into 
one's  faith  and  hope,  to  share  one's  ideals,  and  to  help 
to  bear  the  burden  of  perplexity,  anxiety,  and  care. 
Feeling  his  growing  isolation  and  the  need  of  sympathy 
and  love,  Jesus  asked  some  of  the  men,  who  had  been 
most  constant  in  their  attendance,  to  be  his  permanent 
companions,  thinking  that,  together  with  their  sym- 
pathy, he  might  eventually  have  their  help  in  spreading 
over  a  wider  area  the  good  news  of  the  Kingdom  of 
God. 

Later  tradition  was  agreed  that  there  were  twelve  of 
these  men  and  they  were  often  spoken  of  as  "the 
twelve,"  but  there  was  some  doubt  as  to  one  of  the 
names,  for,  in  place  of  Thaddeus,  as  given  by  Mark  and 
Matthew,  Luke,  both  in  his  Gospel  and  in  the  Book  of 
the  Acts,  gives  Judas,  the  son  of  James. 

The  translation  in  the  authorised  English  version  of 
Mark's  Gospel  (iii,  14),  "And  he  ordained  twelve,"  is 
misleading,  conveying  the  impression  that  these  men 
were  given  official  positions  in  an  organisation.  The 
word  translated  "ordained"  admits  of  no  such  render- 


Jesus  in  Capernaum  127 

ing  and  has  been  corrected  to  "appointed"  in  the  new 
version.  Luke  wrote,  in  his  Gospel,  "and  of  them  he 
chose  twelve."  There  was  no  thought  of  any  organi- 
sation. Jesus  needed  the  sympathy  of  intimate  friends 
and  from  a  large  company  selected  for  more  intimate 
companionship  such  as  seemed  most  promising.  The 
traditional  and  popular  notion  that  he  intended  to 
make  these  men  the  nucleus  of  a  future  congregation 
or  Church  is  entirely  misleading. 

§  XVII:  Mark  Hi,  20-30;  Luke  xi,  14-2J;  Matt  xii, 

22-J2 

§  XVIII:  Mark  m,  31-35;  Luke  viii,  ig-21;  Matt.  xii. 

46-50 

The  excitement  caused  by  the  work  and  preaching 
of  Jesus  grew  so  rapidly  that  it  was  soon  impossible 
for  him  to  avoid  the  crowd  and  that  wherever  he  was, 
whether  in  a  town,  on  the  mountain  side,  or  by  the 
shore  of  the  lake,  a  great  multitude  soon  gathered. 
But  the  crowd  was  not  all  of  one  mind.  Opinions  were 
divided,  for  the  Pharisees  had  begun  to  work  among  the 
people,  teaching  them  that  he  was  a  dangerous  man 
and  the  enemy  of  religion,  while  others  held  that  he 
was  not  intentionally  wicked,  but  virtually  insane. 
This  opinion  seems  to  have  been  shared  by  the  members 
of  his  own  family  who,  we  are  told,  came  from  Nazareth 
to  take  him  by  force  and  put  him  under  restraint,  but 
could  not  get  near  him  on  account  of  the  density  of  the 
crowd. 

The  Pharisees,  who  had  not  succeeded  with  the 
officers  of  Herod  Antipas  in  causing  his  arrest,  seem  to 
have  sent  to  Jerusalem  for  some  scribes  high  in  author- 


128  The  Historic  Jesus 

ity  to  come  and  refute  his  teaching  and  to  overawe  the 
multitude  by  the  prestige  of  their  reputation  and  power. 

Mark  does  not  indicate  what  opened  the  controversy 
but  Luke  and  Matthew  find  a  tradition  that  it  came  to 
an  issue  by  the  heaHng  of  a  man  who  was  bHnd  and 
dumb.  Naturally  the  people  were  amazed,  so  that 
some  of  them  began  to  say  that  this  must  really  be  the 
Messiah.  To  counteract  this,  the  scribes  from  Jerusa- 
lem said:  "No,  he  has  simply  made  a  league  with  the 
Devil  and  by  his  help  he  casts  out  demons." 

There  was  no  belief  which  seemed  more  absolutely 
real  to  the  majority  of  the  people  of  Palestine  at  that 
day  than  the  belief  in  a  personal  Devil,  a  bad  god, 
only  slightly  inferior  in  power  to  the  good  God,  and  in 
immediate  control  of  all  things  in  this  world,  causing 
through  his  demons  all  the  calamities  and  diseases 
which  afflicted  mankind.  The  belief  had  come  from 
Persia,  where  it  constituted  an  essential  part  of  the 
Zoroastrian  reHgion.  It  had  come  into  Palestine  along 
with  the  Persian  dominion  and  had  become  so  entirely 
rooted  in  the  thought  of  the  majority  that  it  seemed 
to  be  a  revelation  of  the  actual  constitution  of  the 
universe. 

It  is  certainly  a  more  intelligent  belief  than  the  later 
Christian  notion  that  God  is  the  direct  cause  of  all 
calamities,  which  is  still  set  forth  on  every  bill  of  lading 
in  the  Christian  world;  for  therein  a  transportation 
company  is  declared  to  be  not  responsible  for  "acts 
of  God, "  by  which  are  meant  such  things  as  tornadoes, 
earthquakes,  strokes  of  lightning,  etc.,  while  in  many  of 
the  churches  it  is  declared  in  a  prayer  "For  a  person 
under  affliction"  that  God  has  "seen  fit  to  visit  him 
with  trouble  and  to  bring  distress  upon  him. " 

It  would  be  better  to  keep  a  personal  Devil,  in  order 


Jesus    in    Capernaum  129 

that  we  might  have  a  God  who  is  worthy  of  love  and  a 
source  of  strength  and  comfort,  until  we  are  intelli- 
gent enough  to  know  that  all  calamities  are  the  result 
of  the  operation  of  natural  law  with  which  God  does 
not  interfere,  and  that  as  a  result  of  his  non-interference 
we  are  saved  from  perpetual  intellectual  confusion. 
It  seems  to  have  been  a  common  belief  that  one  might 
enter  into  league  with  the  Devil.  We  know  how  large 
a  role  the  belief  played  in  Europe  during  the  Middle 
Ages  that  one  could  sell  himself  to  the  Devil  in  the 
next  world  in  return  for  his  service  in  this  world  and 
how  the  belief  has  been  immortalised  in  Goethe's  Faust. 
This  was  the  charge  which  the  scribes  from  Jerusalem 
now  brought  against  Jesus  as  a  means  of  counteracting 
his  growing  influence.  Jesus,  however,  discovering 
what  they  were  saying  among  the  people,  refuted  them 
on  two  grounds.  The  Devil  could  not  work  against 
himself  without  eventually  wrecking  his  own  kingdom. 
So  this  charge  was  absurd.  But,  suppose  it  were  true, 
would  these  men  be  consistent  and  sustain  the  same 
charge  against  some  of  their  own  sons,  who  were  in  the 
habit  of  practising  exorcism? 

Jesus,  having  refuted  them,  turned  upon  them  with 
indignation  and  wrath.  They  were  guilty  of  blasphemy 
against  the  Holy  Ghost,  a  sin  which  would  never  be 
forgiven.  If,  as  he  had  shown  them,  the  Devil  had  not 
helped  him,  then  it  must  be  that  God  was  working 
through  him  and  these  results  of  the  divine  power 
before  their  very  eyes  were  evidences  that  the  Kingdom 
of  God  was  close  at  hand. 

This  was  the  interpretation  which  he  put  upon  his 
extraordinary  power.  As  the  first  leaves  of  Spring  are 
evidences  of  the  coming  of  Summer,  so  were  these 
manifestations  of  power  over  demons  harbingers  of  the 


130  The  Historic  Jesus 

coming  victory  of  God  over  the  whole  power  of  the 
Devil  in  this  world.  To  deny  the  evidence  was  to 
blaspheme  the  very  spirit  of  God,  to  whose  operation 
the  casting  out  of  devils  was  due.  To  let  prejudice 
harden  one's  heart  against  such  light  would  naturally 
exclude  one  from  citizenship  in  the  coming  Kingdom 
and  was  therefore  a  sin  which  would  not  be  forgiven. 
It  should  not  disturb  us  that  Jesus  shared  the  popular 
belief  of  his  day  in  a  personal  Devil  and  in  demoniac 
agency  in  the  causing  of  disease,  nor  is  his  belief  on 
these  matters  to  be  taken  as  evidence  that  it  is  true. 
He  was  not  a  critic  of  popular  beliefs,  but  of  the  immor- 
alities and  hypocrisies  of  life,  while  fitness  for  the  King- 
dom of  God  was  with  him  always  a  moral  quality  and 
never  an  intellectual  attitude.  There  was,  too,  in  his 
attack  upon  the  Pharisees  a  very  necessary  warning  of 
the  danger  of  prejudice;  for,  if  prejudice  be  allowed  to 
shut  out  the  light  of  a  larger  truth  it  so  benumbs  the 
power  of  perception  and  so  warps  the  judgment  as  to 
make  any  future  escape  and  progress  more  difficult, 
if  not  impossible. 

While  this  new  controversy  had  been  going  on,  the 
mother  and  brothers  of  Jesus  had  been  trying  to  force 
their  way  to  him  through  the  crowd,  but  had  not 
succeeded.  They  had  become  wrought  up  against 
him  and  had  come  to  take  him  away.  So  long  as  they 
had  heard  of  his  success  as  a  teacher  and  healer  they 
had  undoubtedly  been  pleased;  but,  when  reports 
began  to  reach  Nazareth  that  he  was  openly  breaking 
the  law  and  that  the  Pharisees  had  denounced  him  as 
an  enemy  of  religion,  they  were  terrified  and  had  prob- 
ably suffered  from  the  slurs  of  their  neighbours.  They 
had  decided  that  he  was  insane  and  that  there  was 
nothing  to  do  but  to  bring  him  home  and  keep  him 


Jesus   in    Capernaum  131 

under  restraint.  Verse  21  connects  with  verse  31. 
Mark  broke  the  connection  to  insert  the  argument 
about  Beelzebub,  because  the  family  of  Jesus  agreed 
with  the  Pharisees  in  this  matter.  Jesus  was  told  that 
they  were  there,  but,  instead  of  sending  for  them  to 
come  to  him,  he  asked,  "Who  is  my  mother,  and  who 
are  my  brethren?"  Then,  looking  upon  the  twelve 
he  said,  "These  are  my  mother  and  my  brethren!  For 
whosoever  will  do  the  will  of  God,  the  same  is  my 
brother  and  sister  and  mother."  It  is  quite  possible 
that  the  answer  discloses  a  long  experience  of  previous 
suffering  in  his  own  home,  a  long  acquaintance  with 
heartache  from  the  dulness  and  cruelty  of  his  own 
family.  At  any  rate  it  records  his  final  break  with 
them. 

This  accoimt  in  the  earliest  Gospel  is  a  complete 
refutation  of  the  stories  which  grew  up  later  of  miracu- 
lous events  in  connection  with  the  birth  of  Jesus,  and 
make  it  evident  that,  when  Mark  wrote,  those  stories 
were  unknown  among  the  Christians.  When  the  later 
Gospels  of  Luke  and  Matthew  were  written,  or,  at 
least,  when  the  stories  of  a  miraculous  birth  were  pre- 
fixed to  them,  the  reason  for  the  coming  of  the  mother 
and  brothers  of  Jesus,  as  given  by  Mark  (iii,  21),  was 
suppressed,  at  the  cost  of  making  his  answer  seem  harsh 
and  cruel,  for  it  was  realised  that  the  mother  of  a 
miraculous  child,  whose  birth  had  been  accompanied 
by  such  extraordinary  phenomena  as  were  related, 
would  not  afterwards  have  thought  her  son  to  be 
insane,  but  would  have  known  from  the  first  that  he 
was  the  Messiah.  Thus  true  history  refutes  the  later 
legends. 

By  the  time  the  fourth  Gospel  was  written,  history 
was  so  entirely  ignored  that  Jesus  was  represented 


132  The  Historic  Jesus 

as  living  happily  with  his  mother  and  his  brothers  in 
Capernaum.     (John  ii,   12.) 

§  XIX:  Mark  iv,  i-g;  Luke  viit,  4-8;    Matt,  xiii,  i-g 

Apparently,  soon  after  the  final  break  with  his  family 
Jesus  began  to  teach  the  truths  which  he  had  at  heart 
by  means  of  illustrations  from  the  ordinary  processes 
of  nature,  or  the  ordinary  occupations  of  life,  which 
seemed  to  him  to  furnish  abundant  analogies  of  spirit- 
ual things.  He  taught  much  in  parables,  which  are 
never  allegories  with  hidden  and  mysterious  meanings, 
but  illustrations  with  a  single  and  direct  application. 
The  people  were  excessively  dull  and  often  failed  to  see 
the  point,  but  Jesus  relieved  himself  from  discourage- 
ment by  hoping  and  believing  that  some  were  not  quite 
so  dull,  and  to  these  he  often  appealed  with  the  words, 
"He  that  hath  ears  to  hear,  let  him  hear. "  His  chosen 
friends  were  also  very  dull,  so  that  it  was  frequently 
necessary  to  explain  a  parable  to  them. 

From  this  unfortunate  necessity  certain  very  mis- 
chievous conclusions  were  afterwards  drawn.  As  the 
disciples  enjoyed  exceptional  opportunities  for  having 
things  explained  to  them,  the  belief  grew  up  later  that 
the  teaching  of  Jesus  was  really  an  esoteric  religion  to 
be  disclosed  only  to  the  initiated.  This  was  followed 
by  the  notion  that  these  fortunate  ones  had  acquired 
their  privileges  as  the  result  of  divine  foreordination. 
Finally  it  was  held  that  Jesus  had  taught  in  parables 
for  the  purpose  of  obscuring  the  truth  and  in  order  that 
certain  men  might  not  understand. 

The  parables  grew  out  of  his  experience  and  are 
often  disclosures  of  the  way  in  which  he  explained  it 
to  himself.     The  parable  of  the  sower  brings  us  very 


Jesus   in    Capernaum  133 

near  to  him  in  sympathy  and  shows  us  his  struggle  to 
keep  his  faith  bright  and  strong  in  face  of  the  beginning 
of  disillusionment. 

When  he  began  to  preach  that  the  Kingdom  of  God 
was  coming  and  coming  soon,  very  soon,  it  seemed  to 
him  that  all  who  heard  his  message  would  at  once 
reform  and  reconstruct  their  lives,  so  as  to  be  found 
worthy  of  citizenship  when  God  should  appear  in  the 
clouds  to  open  the  judgment  and  to  examine  men  as  to 
their  fitness  for  life  in  the  Kingdom,  but  no  such  results 
had  followed.  Some  were  entirely  unmoved  and  others 
only  temporarily  excited.  Some  displayed  a  shortlived 
zeal,  while  only  here  and  there  an  individual  took  his 
message  to  heart  and  showed  results  in  a  transformed 
life.  This  was  certainly  not  what  he  had  expected. 
In  time  he  found  an  explanation  for  it  and  the  parable 
of  the  sower  is  as  if  we  heard  him  thinking  aloud.  It 
seemed  to  him  that  he  was  like  a  man  sowing  seed, 
while  the  people  were  like  the  familiar  soil  of  Palestine, 
hard- trodden,  or  shallow,  or  preoccupied,  with  only 
here  and  there  fertile  spots.  He  had  been  expecting 
too  much.  He  must  take  men  as  he  fotmd  them  and 
be  glad  of  the  fertile  spots  where  the  seed  could  take 
root  and  grow.  He  is  not  blaming  men,  least  of  all 
does  he  blame  God  for  human  conditions,  but  merely 
adjusting  his  outlook  to  his  experience  and  taking  his 
friends  into  his  confidence.  The  spiritual  sowing 
finds  its  analogy  in  human  husbandry  and  there  will 
be  a  harvest  by  and  by.  Ever  thereafter  he  seems 
frequently  to  have  encouraged  himself  in  the  midst  of 
depression  and  to  have  strengthened  his  faith  in  him- 
self and  in  his  mission  by  saying  to  himself,  "The  seed 
is  good. "  In  giving  this  parable  he  is  consistent  with 
his   new   interpretation,    for,    knowing    that    all    who 


134  The  Historic  Jesus 

listened  would  not  understand,  he  appealed  to  those 
who  had  ears  to  hear. 

§  XX;  Mark  iv,  10-20;  Luke  viii,  Q-15;  Matt,  xiii,  10-23 

It  is  undoubtedly  true  that  the  disciples  needed  to 
have  this  and  other  parables  explained  to  them,  but 
the  explanation  is  certainly  not  that  which  Mark  gives, 
for  it  loses  the  simplicity  and  naturalness  of  the  parable 
by  converting  it  into  an  allegory  and  making  it  the 
medium  of  hidden  truth.  By  the  time  he  wrote  the 
belief  had  grown  up  among  the  Christians  that  the 
parables  were  not  illustrations  of  truth,  but  mystifica- 
tions to  be  understood  only  by  the  initiated. 

Mark  wrote  (iv,  12):  "That  seeing  they  may  see  and 
not  perceive;  and  hearing  they  may  hear  and  not 
understand;  lest  at  any  time  they  should  be  converted 
and  their  sins  should  be  forgiven  them. " 

Mark  had  been  a  companion  of  Paul  and  had  un- 
doubtedly read  in  his  Epistle  to  the  Romans  (xi,  8) : 
"God  gave  them  a  spirit  of  stupor,  eyes  that  they 
should  not  see  and  ears  that  they  should  not  hear,  unto 
this  day. " 

Paul,  in  shaking  off  the  burden  of  the  Jewish  law, 
had  retained  all  L  *s  old  rabbinical  beliefs  and  had  not  pro- 
gressed from  the  view  of  Isaiah  eight  centuries  earlier, 
"Go  and  tell  this  people.  Hear  ye  indeed,  but  under- 
stand not,  and  see  ye  indeed,  but  perceive  not.  Make 
the  heart  of  this  people  fat  and  make  their  eyes  heavy 
and  shut  their  eyes,  lest  they  see  with  their  eyes  and 
hear  with  their  ears  and  understand  with  their  heart, 
and  convert  and  be  healed"  (Isaiah  vi,  9,  10). 

It  is  evident  that  the  explanation  which  the  Gospels 
give  of  why  Jesus  taught  in  parables  did  not  come  from 


Jesus    in   Capernaum  135 

him,  but  is  due  to  the  persistence  of  the  spirit  and  beliefs 
of  Judaism. 

Jesus  never  said  nor  thought  that  people  were  dull,  or 
shallow,  or  preoccupied  because  God  had  made  them 
so  in  order  that  they  might  not  be  helped,  but  was 
merely  stating  facts  as  he  found  them  to  account  for 
the  small  results  of  his  work.  The  shocking  theory 
which  the  Gospels  give  is  due  to  the  spirit  of  theological 
arrogance,  in  conjunction  with  the  beHef  in  fatalism, 
and  ought  to  be  omitted  wherever  the  Gospel  is  read, 
while  the  lengthy  allegorical  interpretation  represents 
the  belief  of  early  Christians  and  not  the  teaching  of 
Jesus. 

§  XXI:   Mark  iv,  21-25;  Luke  viii,  16-18 

Jesus  seems  to  have  followed  up  his  talk  with  the 
disciples  about  the  parable  of  the  sower  with  some 
private  instruction,  which  left  so  strong  an  impression 
that  it  was  transmitted  intact.  In  it  he  contradicts 
the  conclusion  which  the  Christians  afterwards  drew 
concerning  the  nature  and  purpose  of  parables.  There 
is  to  be  no  esoteric  teaching.  There  are  to  be  no  mys- 
teries to  be  kept  hidden  and  enjoyed  in  secret.  What- 
ever they  learned,  they  were  to  teach;  whatever  they 
heard,  they  were  to  proclaim ;  for  they  were  like  candles, 
the  piu*pose  of  which  is  to  give  light,  not  to  have  the 
light  obscured.  But  this  very  privilege  of  giving  light 
brought  with  it  a  new  responsibility.  They  must  take 
heed  what  they  heard,  not  listening  to  everything  in- 
discriminately, but  learning  to  judge  between  truth 
and  falsehood,  between  what  was  helpful  and  what  was 
injurious.  Jesus  had  such  clear  intuitions  of  moral 
and  spiritual  truth  that  he  believed  that  the  same  power 


136  The  Historic  Jesus 

was  inherent  in  every  one  in  a  minor  degree,  needing 
only  to  be  cultivated. 

It  was  a  magnificent  interpretation  of  human  nature, 
contrary  to  popular  opinion  in  his  day  and  obscured 
by  theological  fictions  ever  since,  but  Jesus  explained 
that,  if  they  would  use  such  power  of  discrimination 
as  they  had,  the  power  would  grow  by  use;  while,  if 
they  neglected  to  use  their  faculties,  they  would  lose 
the  use  of  them.  Modem  science  has  established  the 
truth  perceived  by  him  so  long  ago  and  now  teaches 
that  "use  or  lose"  is  an  absolute  law  applicable  to 
every  faculty  of  the  body  and  the  mind. 

The  whole  of  his  teaching,  as  contained  in  these  few 
words,  was  wonderful.  Man  was  not  the  subject  of 
fate  or  decrees.  He  was  capable  of  perceiving  the 
highest  truths  and  attaining  the  most  exalted  virtues. 
Let  him  take  control  of  himself,  not  submitting  to  some 
external  authority,  listening  heedlessly  to  traditions  or 
falling  into  the  rut  of  custom,  but  using  his  faculties, 
and  he  would  grow. 

This  was  religion  as  Jesus  understood  it,  every  man 
becoming  a  battery  of  moral  and  spiritual  force,  illumin- 
ating the  world  by  teaching  and  living  the  truth.  The 
Gospels  show  how  completely  he  has  been  misunder- 
stood and  how  diametrically  he  was  opposed  to  the 
fatalistic  interpretation  of  life  which  is  inherent  in  the 
Semitic  mind. 

§  XXII:  Markiv,  26-2Q 

Mark  alone  records  another  parable  of  similar  im- 
port with  the  previous  one,  giving  another  of  the  ex- 
planations of  Jesus  with  regard  to  his  work. 

The  sowing  of  truth  was  very  like  the  sowing  of 


Jesus  in  Capernaum  137 

grain  and  therefore  subject  to  the  natural  law  of  growth. 
The  sower  must  content  himself  with  sowing  the  seed. 
It  would  spring  up  and  grow,  he  could  not  tell  how, 
but  he  could  do  nothing  to  expedite  the  process.  He 
must  wait  in  patience  and  faith  for  the  results.  In 
suggesting  certain  features  of  the  growth  of  the  grain, 
Jesus  is  merely  calling  attention  to  the  fact  that  some 
time  must  elapse  between  his  sowing  and  its  harvest. 
He  certainly  is  not  calling  attention  to  the  evolution  of 
Christian  character,  nor  to  the  historical  development 
of  the  Church.  There  are  allegorical  interpretations 
which  have  been  put  into  the  parable  and  which  have 
formed  the  basis  of  thousands  of  sermons,  but  they 
were  furthest  from  the  thought  of  Jesus.  Christians 
inherited  the  tendency  to  allegorise  from  the  Jews,  but 
were  ignorant  of  the  fact  that  allegorising  Scripture 
was  a  Jewish  method  of  explaining  away  some  things 
which  a  higher  civilisation  had  outgrown.  It  never 
was  a  method  for  illustrating  truth,  but  often  became 
the  means  of  obscuring  history. 

This  parable  seems  to  show  that  Jesus  had  already 
modified  his  anticipations  and  had  come  to  think  that 
the  coming  of  the  Kingdom  of  God  would  be  delayed 
imtil  the  seed  which  he  was  sowing  had  had  time  to 
produce  a  harvest  of  men  fitted  for  citizenship. 

§§  XXIII,  XXIV:   Mark  iv,  30-34;  Luke  xiii,  18-21; 
Matt,  xiii,  31-35 

It  needs  to  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  parables  were 
originally  contained  in  a  collection  of  the  "Sayings  of 
Jesus, "  made  probably  by  Matthew  and  contained  in  a 
Gospel  which  bore  his  name,  of  about  the  year  75  a.d. 
Mark  borrowed  such  of  the  parables  from  the  current 


138  The  Historic  Jesus 

stock  as  seemed  best  fitted  to  his  narrative,  while  Luke 
and  Matthew  incorporated  the  "Sayings"  much  more 
completely.  Those  which  they  have  in  common  with 
Mark  are  often  given  in  quite  a  different  connection. 
From  a  careful  comparison  of  the  two  later  Gospels  the 
attempt  has  been  made  by  Hamack  to  reconstruct  the 
lost  book  of  "The  Sayings  of  Jesus." 

The  parable  of  the  mustard  seed  is  common  to  all 
the  Synoptic  Gospels.  It  is  thought  by  some  of  the 
critics  that  "mustard  seed"  cannot  have  been  the  orig- 
inal word  in  this  place  because  the  seed  is  not  the 
smallest  nor  its  plant  the  largest  known,  but  this  is 
childish  criticism.  The  point  of  the  parable  remains 
unchanged. 

Jesus  is  strengthening  his  faith  and  that  of  his  dis- 
ciples. Although  the  work  which  he  is  doing  seems  so 
insignificant,  the  results  will  be  astonishing,  because  the 
influences  which  he  is  making  operative  will  continue 
to  work  until  they  have  produced  a  new  life  among  the 
whole  Jewish  nation.  There  is  no  allegory  in  the  par- 
able, no  prediction  of  a  great  Church  which  is  to  grow 
and  spread  throughout  the  world,  giving  shade  and 
protection  to  all  the  nations  of  the  earth.  There  was 
nothing  of  this  sort  in  the  mind  of  Jesus  and,  had  there 
been,  the  discipk;,  could  not  have  been  thought  dull  for 
not  understanding  it.  It  needs  always  to  be  borne  in 
mind  that  Jesus  expected  the  Kingdom  of  God  to  come 
suddenly,  quickly,  and  supematurally,  God  himself 
appearing  in  the  clouds  to  establish  his  personal  reign 
in  a  great  Jewish  kingdom  of  righteousness  and  joy 
and  peace.  The  work  which  he  felt  to  be  specially  his 
own  was  to  make  men  expect  its  coming  and  fit  them- 
selves for  it. 

This  parable  is  one  of  the  many  illustrations  by  which 


Jesus  in  Capernaum  139 

he  kept  up  his  courage  and  that  of  his  friends.  The 
seed  was  naturally  small,  but  the  growth  would  more 
than  exceed  all  anticipations. 

Matthew  and  Luke  give  another  parable,  which 
seemed  to  them  to  belong  in  this  connection.  While  the 
result  of  his  work  was  sure,  they  were  still  not  to  be  dis- 
couraged because  they  could  not  watch  the  process  of 
growth.  It  was  Hke  yeast,  lost  to  view  in  a  large  quan- 
tity of  flour,  but,  although  lost  to  view,  it  was  at  work 
all  the  time,  increasing  the  ferment,  permeating  the 
mass,  imtil,  by  and  by,  all  the  flour  would  be  filled 
with  a  new  life.  So  it  would  be  with  the  teaching  of 
Jesus.  It  would  be  lost  to  view  in  the  mass  of  the 
Jewish  people  and  yet  it  would  be  at  work  powerfully 
under  the  siuface  all  the  time,  imtil  by  and  by  they 
would  all  show  the  transforming  power  of  the  new 
moral  and  spiritual  leaven. 

In  these  ways  Jesus  encouraged  himself  and  warded 
off  the  crushing  effects  of  disappointment  which  the 
dulness  of  the  people,  the  hostility  of  the  authorities, 
and  the  increasing  defection  of  the  masses  had  caused 
him. 

§  XX  V:  Mark  iv,  35-41;  Luke  viii,  22-25;  -^^^^-  ^'^ii* 

23-27 

Jesus  often  crossed  the  lake  both  for  the  sake  of  rest 
from  the  crowds  and  for  safety  from  his  enemies.  The 
eastern  shore  belonged  to  the  territory  of  Philip,  another 
of  the  sons  of  Herod,  but  it  was  pagan  territory,  free 
from  the  influence  of  scribes  and  Pharisees,  and  Jesus 
was  entirely  safe  among  the  heathen.  On  one  of  those 
crossings  of  the  lake  an  event  occurred  which  left  a 
strong  impression   upon   the   minds  of  the   disciples. 


140  The  Historic  Jesus 

A  great  storm  arose,  during  which  Jesus  was  asleep. 
In  their  terror  and  distress  the  disciples  woke  him,  but 
he  upbraided  them  for  their  fear  and  lack  of  faith  and 
calmed  them  by  his  quietness  and  confidence.  Per- 
haps, also,  he  rebuked  the  wind,  for  he  undoubtedly 
shared  the  popular  belief  that  storms  were  caused  by 
demoniac  agency  and  that  the  winds  were  manifesta- 
tions of  conscious  intelligences.  When  the  storm  ceased 
the  disciples  were  not  slow  m  concluding  that  he  had 
caused  it  to  cease.  Afterwards  the  idealising  phantasy 
embellished  the  account  into  that  of  a  stupendous 
miracle. 

The  Gospels  show  the  work  of  phantasy  upon  a 
simple  basis  of  fact,  for  the  later  account  which  Mark 
gives  (vi,  48)  of  Jesus  walking  upon  the  water  is  but 
a  further  embellishment  of  this  same  narrative,  while  a 
still  later  growth  is  shown  in  Matthew's  account  (Matt. 
xiv,  28)  of  Peter's  attempt  to  walk  on  the  water.  The 
growth  of  such  legends  was  inevitable  from  the  fixed 
belief  of  the  Jewish  Christians  that  Jesus  was  the  Mes- 
siah and  that  the  Messiah  would  work  astonishing 
miracles.  They  had  precedents,  also,  in  their  Script- 
ures for  just  such  accounts  as  these,  not  only  in  the 
story  of  Jonah,  but  in  the  107th  Psalm:  "For  he  maketh 
the  storm  to  cea^e,  so  that  the  waves  thereof  are  still. " 

In  a  world  which  knew  nothing  of  any  laws  of  nature, 
it  was  taken  for  granted  that  wonderful  works  would  be 
the  natural  evidences  of  superhuman  power,  such  as 
it  was  believed  that  the  Messiah  must  have,  but  in  the 
world  of  to-day,  which  recognises  the  universality  and 
inviolability  of  law,  any  suspensions  or  counteractions 
of  law  are  no  longer  recognised  as  possible.  What  we 
call  a  law  of  Nature  is  not  some  necessity  of  fate  limit- 
ing the  divine  activity,  but  simply  our  recognition  of 


Jesus  in  Capernaum  141 

the  way  in  which  the  supreme  life  in  the  universe  acts. 
Our  very  confidence  in  the  uniformity  of  Nature  has 
given  us  a  larger  realisation  of  God  than  was  possible 
to  men,  who  looked  for  him  only  in  what  was  unusual. 

The  world  has  not  become  godless  and  irreligious, 
but  vastly  better  fitted  for  true  religion  as  a  light  and  a 
power,  in  learning  to  deny  absolutely  any  possibility 
of  miracles. 

In  our  search  for  the  true  story  of  Jesus,  therefore, 
we  must  eliminate  from  the  Gospel  narratives  all 
accounts  of  miracles,  assigning  them  both  to  the  credu- 
lity of  an  ignorant  age  and  to  the  desire  of  Jewish 
Christians  to  prove  that  Jesus  was  the  Messiah. 

§  XX  VI:  Mark  v,  1-20;  Luke  viii,  26-jQ;  Matt,  viiit 

28-34 

Jesus  and  his  disciples  landed  probably  somewhere 
near  the  north-eastern  comer  of  the  lake.  Tradition 
could  no  longer  tell  where,  when  the  Gospels  were 
written,  for  Gadara  cannot  be  right,  as  it  is  too  far  from 
the  lake.  On  the  north-eastern  shore  are  some  steep 
cliffs,  such  as  the  narrative  calls  for.  They  were  met 
by  a  crazy  man  who  lived  among  the  rock  tombs. 
Jesus  calmed  the  man,  who  in  his  raving  had  frightened 
some  swine  so  that  they  ran  over  the  edge  of  the  cliff 
and  were  drowned  in  the  lake.  So  much  is  probably 
historical;  but,  with  this  for  a  basis,  myth  and  possibly 
allegory  have  been  worked  up  into  an  extravagant 
account,  which  is  interesting  because  it  shows  some  of 
the  popular  beliefs  about  demons.  It  was  believed  that 
they  had  names,  which  they  tried  to  hide,  but  which 
the  successful  exorcist  needed  to  know.  It  was  thought 
that  they  were  glad  to  inhabit  the  bodies  of  men  or 


142  The  Historic  Jesus 

animals,  but  dreaded  to  wander,  as  disembodied  spirits, 
in  desolate  places,  or  to  be  thrown  into  the  great  abyss, 
whence  it  would  be  a  long  time  before  they  emerged 
to  find  lodgment  in  another  body. 

Jesus  is  said  to  have  declined  to  take  this  man  with 
him,  but  to  have  told  him  to  go  home  to  his  friends  and 
tell  them  of  his  cure.  Much  ingenuity  has  been  devoted 
to  accounting  for  this,  whereas  in  Galilee  he  always  bade 
those  who  were  healed  of  mental  and  nervous  troubles 
not  to  tell  of  it.  The  reason  ought  to  be  obvious.  In 
Galilee  those  who  were  healed  were  determined  to  pro- 
claim him  as  the  Messiah,  which  he  did  not  wish  to  be 
considered,  while  on  pagan  territory  there  was  no 
such  danger  and,  whatever  men  might  call  him,  there 
were  no  scribes  and  Pharisees  to  be  aroused  to  increased 
hostility. 

§  XXVII:  Markv,  21-44;  Luke  viii,  40-56;  Matt,  ix, 

18-26 

On  returning  to  the  western  side  of  the  lake,  pro- 
bably to  Capernaum,  Jesus  is  met  by  a  ruler  of  the 
synagogue,  Jairus  by  name,  who  asks  him  to  come  and 
heal  his  daughter  who  is  at  the  point  of  death.  On  his 
way  to  the  h'^use  he  receives  word,  according  to  Mark 
and  Luke,  that  the  child  is  dead,  while,  according  to 
Matthew,  she  was  dead  when  he  appealed  to  Jesus,  who 
accordingly  entreated  him  not  to  heal  a  sick  child,  but 
to  restore  a  dead  one  to  life.  According  to  the  earlier 
narratives  Jesus  told  the  father  not  to  fear,  but  only 
to  believe.  With  the  crowd  pressing  about  him  he 
felt  a  sudden  shock  and  asked,  "Who  touched  me?" 
The  disciples  thought  the  question  foolish,  because 
people  were  unavoidably  touching  him  all  the  time, 


Jesus  in  Capernaum  143 

but  Jesus  was  sure  that  he  had  experienced  a  discharge 
of  force.  Then  there  came  a  woman  and  confessed 
that  she  had  touched  the  hem  of  his  garment,  because 
she  felt  sure  that  if  she  could  do  so  she  would  be  cured 
of  a  long-standing  trouble,  nor  had  she  been  dis- 
appointed, for  she  was  already  cured.  Jesus  assured  her 
that  her  faith  had  made  her  whole.  There  is  no  doubt 
about  the  truth  of  this  narrative,  for  it  is  in  entire 
accord  with  all  that  we  know  to-day  of  the  wonderful 
results  of  auto-suggestion.  The  woman  expected  to 
be  healed  and  was  healed.  Her  faith,  that  is  her 
beHef ,  had  made  her  whole.  Magnetic  power  was  also 
brought  into  action.  Jesus  was  imdoubtedly  full  of 
magnetism  and  the  touch  of  the  woman  caused  a  dis- 
charge, of  which  both  he  and  she  were  conscious. 

Although  the  story  of  Jairus's  daughter,  in  the  form 
in  which  it  has  come  down  to  us,  gives  the  impression 
that  this  was  a  miracle,  the  restoration  of  a  dead  child 
to  life,  it  nevertheless  holds  to  the  fact  that  Jesus  him- 
self did  not  so  regard  it,  but  was  sure  from  the  first 
that  the  child  was  not  dead,  only  asleep,  or,  as  we  should 
say  to-day,  in  a  state  of  syncope.  The  statement, 
preserved  only  in  the  earliest  Gospel,  that  Jesus  bade 
them  give  her  something  to  eat,  keeps  the  narrative 
within  the  domain  of  naturalness  and  accords  with  his 
statement  that  she  was  not  dead,  but  faint  from  weak- 
ness. 

When  the  operation  of  psychic  forces  is  better  under- 
stood than  it  is  to-day  this  narrative  will  become 
doubly  interesting,  because  it  is  so  remarkable  an  illus- 
tration of  the  power  of  belief.  Jesus  had  unlimited 
belief  in  the  power  of  God  working  through  him.  He 
took  with  him  the  strongest  of  his  disciples,  whose 
belief  in  him  was  already  unbounded,  and  the  parents 


144  The  Historic  Jesus 

of  the  child,  whose  belief  was  quickened  by  love. 
He  thus  acquired  a  combined  power  of  suggestion 
which  acted  upon  the  mind  of  the  child  and  restored 
her  to  consciousness.  At  least,  this  is  possible,  but 
there  was  no  miracle. 

§  XXVIII:  Mark  vi,  i-6;  Matt,  xiii,  53-58 

At  some  time  after  these  experiences  Jesus  visited 
Nazareth  with  his  disciples  and  taught  in  the  syna- 
gogue on  the  Sabbath.  With  the  natural  jealousy  of 
provincials,  the  people  at  Nazareth  were  prejudiced 
against  him  and  resented  it  that  he  had  acquired  such  a 
reputation  as  a  teacher  and  healer,  while  they  had 
remained  in  the  ruts  of  commonplaceness.  They 
asked  where  did  he  get  this  learning  that  he  presumed 
to  teach  in  the  synagogue  and  what  is  this  power  of  his 
of  which  we  hear  so  much?  "Is  not  this  the  carpen- 
ter" with  whom  we  have  all  grown  up,  "the  son  of 
Mary,  and  brother  of  James  and  Joses,  and  Judas  and 
Simon?  and  are  not  his  sisters  here  with  us?" 

To  all  these  slurs  Jesus  replied,  "A  prophet  is  not 
without  honour,  but  in  his  own  country  and  among  his 
own  kin  and  in  his  own  house. " 

This  statement  by  Mark  is  perfectly  clear  evidence 
that,  when  he  wrote,  about  67  a.d.,  no  one  among  the 
Christians  had  heard  of  any  stories  of  a  miraculous 
birth.  The  people  in  Nazareth  knew  that  he  was 
Mary's  son  just  as  his  brothers  were  her  sons,  and  Mark 
had  no  different  belief.  Luke,  who  wrote  at  least 
thirty  years  later,  after  the  stories  of  the  miraculous 
birth  had  begun  to  circulate,  suppressed  the  account 
of  this  visit  to  Nazareth  altogether,  because  it  contra- 
dicted the  stories  of  the  birth,  and  introduced  the 


Jesus    in    Capernaum  145 

account  of  preaching  at  Nazareth  by  Jesus  at  the 
beginning  of  his  ministry,  which  cannot  be  historical. 
Matthew  had  less  literary  ability  than  Luke  and  did 
not  see  that  this  account  contradicted  the  stories  of  the 
birth;  but  he  softened  down  one  of  the  statements  of 
Mark  in  an  interesting  way.  Mark  makes  the  people 
ask,  "Is  not  this  the  carpenter?"  but  Matthew  is 
unwilling  to  think  of  the  Messiah  as  having  been  a 
carpenter  and  changes  the  question  into,  "Is  not  this 
the  carpenter's  son?"  Mark  also  says  that  Jesus 
could  not  do  any  wonderful  work  in  Nazareth,  on 
account  of  their  unbelief,  implying,  as  he  always  does, 
that  he  was  dependent  for  results  upon  an  atmosphere 
of  belief.  Matthew,  on  the  contrary,  dislikes  to  limit 
the  power  of  Jesus  by  saying  that  he  could  not,  but  says 
merely  that  he  did  not,  giving  the  impression  that  it 
was  to  pimish  the  people  for  their  unbelief. 

§  XXIX:  Mark  vi,  7-13;  Luke  ix,  1-6;  Matt,  x,  1-1$ 

Jesus  felt  that  the  work  which  lay  nearest  to  his 
heart,  that  of  proclaiming  the  coming  of  the  Kingdom 
of  God,  would  be  expedited  if  he  sent  out  his  disciples 
upon  a  preaching  tour  among  the  neighbouring  villages. 
Just  what  instructions  he  gave  them  the  Christians  of  a 
later  generation  did  not  know,  but,  judging  that  the 
circumstances  were  similar  to  those  in  their  own  day, 
they  seem  to  have  supplied  the  details  of  this  earlier 
missionary  work  largely  from  their  own  experience. 
Part  of  the  accoimt  in  Mark's  Gospel  is  the  most 
natural  and  probable. 

They  were  to  go  in  pairs  in  different  directions,  each 
taking  a  staff  and  wearing  sandals.  They  were  not  to 
carry  a  pouch,  nor  bread,  nor  even  the  small  copper 


146  The  Historic  Jesus 

mone}''  of  the  country,  but  to  depend  entirely  upon 
hospitality.  In  each  town  they  were  to  inquire  for 
some  worthy  man  and  remain  as  his  guests,  not  going 
from  house  to  house,  thus  avoiding  local  entanglements. 
If  the  people  in  any  place  would  not  listen  to  them 
gladly,  they  were  to  hurry  on  to  another  place.  Mark 
says  that  they  preached  that  men  should  repent, 
which  undoubtedly  they  did,  but  this  was  secondary 
to  their  greater  theme  that  the  Kingdom  of  God  was 
coming.  Because  it  was  coming,  men  must  get  ready 
for  it,  by  changing  their  lives,  so  as  to  be  worthy  of 
citizenship.  Matthew  appreciated  this  point  better 
than  Mark,  reporting  as  the  instruction  of  Jesus  (Matt. 
X,  7) :  "  As  ye  go,  preach,  saying,  the  kingdom  of  heaven 
is  at  hand.  *' 

The  reported  instruction  that,  wherever  they  en- 
countered hostility  they  were  to  shake  off  the  dust  of 
the  road  for  a  testimony  against  the  people  of  a  town,  is 
contrary  to  the  spirit  and  teaching  of  Jesus  and  cannot 
have  come  from  him.  It  displays  a  narrow  and  intense 
fanaticism  and  must  reflect  the  spirit  of  the  early  Christ- 
ians in  their  missionary  efforts  to  convert  the  Jews 
to  their  belief  that  Jesus  was  the  Messiah.  The  same 
is  true  of  the  reference  to  Sodom  and  Gomorrah  in 
Matthew 's  Gospel. 

How  little  the  early  Christians  understood  Jesus  is 
evident  from  the  statement  that,  in  sending  out  the 
disciples,  he  gave  them  power  over  imclean  spirits,  as 
if  this  had  been  the  chief  object  of  his  work  and  their 
work;  but  Mark  wrote  for  people  in  the  great  pagan 
world  outside  of  Palestine  and  never  omitted  an 
opportunity  to  impress  them  with  the  supposed  super- 
naturalness  of  Jesus.  The  disciples  from  contact 
with  Jesus  had  possibly  developed  some  psychic  force 


Jesus    in    Capernaum  147 

and  were  able  to  heal  some  diseases  of  a  nervous  origin, 
but  the  use  of  this  power  was  far  from  being  the  pur- 
pose of  their  mission.  That  Mark  drew  much  from  his 
imagination  is  evident  from  the  thirteenth  verse,  in 
which  he  states  that  they  "anointed  with  oil  many  that 
were  sick  and  healed  them. "  Jesus  never  used  oil,  nor 
resorted  to  any  of  the  methods  of  the  professional  exor- 
cists in  healing  the  sick  and  he  certainly  did  not  recom- 
mend such  methods  to  his  disciples,  nor  was  such  use 
of  oil  in  vogue  among  the  Jews  or  the  Arabs.  It  was 
altogether  a  pagan  custom,  so  that  the  thirteenth  verse 
of  the  sixth  chapter,  either  by  Mark  himself  or  by  some 
copyist,  is  an  adaptation  of  the  Gospel  to  pagan  readers. 

As  regards  the  equipment  for  the  missionary  tour, 
there  are  slight  discrepancies  between  the  three  Gospels. 
Mark  says  that  the  disciples  were  to  have  staves  and 
sandals,  Luke  says  no  staves  while  Matthew  says 
neither  staves  nor  sandals. 

These  discrepancies  are  unimportant,  but  they  show 
how  each  writer  filled  in  details  from  his  own  imagina- 
tion and  are  damaging  to  all  theories  of  inspiration. 

In  connection  with  this  sending  out  of  the  disciples 
to  preach,  Matthew  adds  a  long  list  of  instructions  which 
Jesus  is  represented  as  giving  them,  in  which  he  mixes 
up  things  belonging  to  different  dates  with  a  total 
disregard  of  history,  the  greater  part  being  reminiscences 
from  the  later  missionary  work  of  the  Christians. 

They  were  to  beware  of  men,  who  would  deliver 
them  up  to  councils  and  scourge  them  in  the  synagogues 
and  they  would  be  brought  before  kings  and  governors 
for  a  testimony  to  Jews  and  Gentiles  and  yet,  in  the 
same  instructions,  they  are  bidden  to  keep  away  from 
Gentiles  and  Samaritans  and  to  confine  their  preaching 
to  "the  lost  sheep  of  the  house  of  Israel."     A  brother 


148  The  Historic  Jesus 

would  deliver  up  his  brother  to  death  and  a  father  his 
child.  Children  would  rise  up  against  their  parents 
and  cause  them  to  be  put  to  death  and  they  would  be 
hated  of  all  men.  Surely  these  dreadful  consequences 
were  not  expected  to  result  from  the  preaching  of 
twelve  men  among  the  small  villages  of  Galilee.  They 
did  happen  afterwards,  during  the  great  Jewish  per- 
secution of  Christians,  beginning  with  the  death  of 
Stephen,  but  Matthew,  with  incomprehensible  naivete, 
imagines  that  Jesus  expected  his  disciples  to  suffer 
great  persecutions  as  a  result  01  their  harmless  mission- 
ary journey  and,  although  he  supposes  that  he  antici- 
pated trouble  for  them  from  the  Gentiles,  he  is  thought 
to  have  assured  them  that  they  would  not  have  gone 
through  the  cities  of  Israel  before  the  Son  of  Man 
had  come. 

Some  of  the  advice  concerning  modesty  and  courage 
is  no  doubt  genuine,  but  Luke  gives  these  sayings  more 
properly  in  a  different  connection. 

The  reference  to  taking  up  the  cross  and  following 
Jesus  could  not  have  come  from  him,  for  it  was  im- 
possible before  the  crucifixion,  nor  would  it  have 
occurred  to  any  one  afterwards  except  in  time  of  per- 
secution, nor  could  Jesus  have  possibly  suggested  to  the 
twelve  men  whom  he  sent  out  to  preach  that  they 
might  lose  their  lives  as  a  result. 

It  is  a  great  misfortune  that  any  writer  of  a  Gospel 
should  have  been  so  entirely  without  historical  con- 
sciousness, but  it  becomes  unpardonable  to-day  if  a 
better  knowledge  of  history  is  not  allowed  to  correct 
ancient  blundering  in  the  interest  of  truth. 


II.      A.      THE  PERIOD  OF  WANDERING 
§§XXX-XLII 

§  XXX:  Mark  vi,  14-2Q;  Luke  ix,  y-g;  Matt,  xiv,  1-12 

The  alarm  of  Herod  Antipas  at  the  excitement  among 
the  people  of  Galilee,  caused  by  the  preaching  of 
Jesus,  greatly  increased  the  danger  to  which  he  was 
exposed  and  made  it  necessary,  if  he  would  escape  the 
fate  of  John  the  Baptist,  to  be  always  on  his  guard,  to 
avoid  publicity  as  much  as  possible,  to  keep  away 
from  the  larger  towns,  and  at  times  to  seek  safety  upon 
foreign  and  pagan  soil.  There  was  much  speculation 
concerning  him.  Some  took  him  to  be  Elijah,  in  ac- 
cordance with  a  popular  belief  that  he  would  return 
before  the  coming  of  the  Kingdom  of  God,  others 
thought  him  to  be  a  prophet,  like  any  of  the  old  prophets, 
while  Herod  Antipas,  with  superstitious  fear,  thought 
that  he  must  be  John  the  Baptist  returned  to  life. 
Herod  was  undoubtedly  much  disturbed  and  thus 
the  danger  to  Jesus  was  increased. 

Mark  introduces  a  story  about  the  death  of  John 
the  Baptist  which  was  no  doubt  popularly  believed, 
but  which  contains  some  featiu-es  of  extreme  improb- 
ability. Herod  had  married  his  brother's  wife,  who 
preferred  being  the  wife  of  a  small  Oriental  ruler  to  that 
of  a  private  gentleman  in  Rome.  John  had  probably 
denounced  the  wickedness  and  the  public  assigned  the 
hatred  of  Herodias  as  the  cause  of  his  arrest,  while 
Josephus   states   with   more   probability   that   Herod 

149 


150  The  Historic  Jesus 

arrested  him  from  the  fear  of  a  political  uprising. 
Josephus  also  says  that  John  was  imprisoned  in  Ma- 
chasrus,  a  castle  high  up  in  a  valley  east  of  the  Dead  Sea, 
which  interferes  with  the  story  of  Herod's  birthday 
supper,  since  it  would  have  been  impossible  to  trans- 
port "the  lords,  high  captains,  and  chief  estates  of 
Galilee"  from  Tiberias  to  Machasrus  to  celebrate  that 
event. 

If  there  were  such  a  supper  it  was  at  Tiberias  and, 
if  the  story  of  the  dancing  and  its  results  be  true  and 
John  were  imprisoned  at  Machaerus,  then  some  time 
must  have  elapsed  between  the  request  and  the  be- 
heading, so  that  the  tragic  scene  of  the  head  being 
brought  at  once  on  a  charger  will  have  to  be  dismissed, 
as  unhistorical.  That  the  story  is  overdrawn  is  evident 
from  the  fact  that  Herod  could  not  give  away  half  of 
his  tetrarchy,  since  only  Tiberius  could  do  that.  Mark 
shows  his  lack  of  acquaintance  with  the  facts  by  calling 
Herod  a  king,  while  Luke,  of  much  superior  literary 
ability,  discredits  the  story  altogether  and  omits  it 
from  his  Gospel. 

§  XXXI:  Mark  vi,  30-33;  Luke  ix,  10-12;  Matt,  xiv, 

13-18 

The  apostles  returned  from  their  missionary  journey 
and  told  Jesus  what  they  had  done  and  what  they  had 
taught.  He  bade  them  come  apart  with  him  into  a 
desert  place  to  rest,  for  in  Capernaum  the  crowd  left 
them  no  leisure,  not  even  to  eat. 

The  people  were  certainly  wrought  up  to  a  high  state 
of  religious  excitement  and  expectation  and  it  is  not  at 
all  improbable  that  many  may  have  followed  the 
course  of  the  boat,  running  along  the  shore  and  in- 


The  Period  of  Wandering  151 

creasing  in  number  by  the  way,  so  that,  instead  of  a 
quiet  resting  place,  Jesus  found  a  great  multitude 
assembled  soon  after  his  arrival  at  the  territory  of 
Philip.    Luke  said  afterwards  that  it  was  near  Bethsaida. 

§  XXXII:  Mark  vi,  34-44;  Luke  ix,  12-17;  Matt,  xiv, 

14-21 

Here,  in  this  secluded  spot,  relieved  of  all  danger 
from  the  Pharisees  and  from  Herod,  one  of  the  memor- 
able events  occurred  which  left  a  deep  and  lasting 
impression  upon  the  minds  of  the  Christians. 

If,  with  minds  free  from  all  prejudice,  we  try  to  make 
ourselves  part  of  the  multitude  which  thronged  about 
Jesus  we  shall  the  better  understand  the  wonderful 
things  which  happened.  Jesus  had  compassion  on  the 
people  because  they  were  as  sheep  not  having  a  shep- 
herd, men  with  no  one  to  care  for  them,  to  love  them  or 
to  help  them,  neglected  by  the  exponents  of  orthodox 
reUgion  and  despised  because  they  did  not  understand 
the  intricacies  of  the  Jewish  law,  until  they  had  come 
to  think  of  themselves  as  mere  worthless  chaff;  but 
here  was  one  who  appealed  to  their  manhood,  who  told 
them  of  their  latent  powers  for  goodness,  of  a  yoke 
which  was  light  and  easy,  because  it  rested  upon  the 
spontaneity  of  righteous  motives,  instead  of  crushing 
them  with  the  burden  of  the  prescriptions  of  the  law, 
of  the  great  Kingdom  of  God,  which  was  coming  soon 
for  just  such  as  they,  to  do  away  with  sorrow  and  pain, 
to  set  aside  the  injustice  and  cruelty  of  life,  and  to  fill 
the  world  with  sweetness  and  joy  for  such  as  had 
learned  to  do  the  will  of  God.  As  Jesus  talked  to 
them  thus  his  enthusiasm  grew,  his  sympathy  won  their 
hearts,   the   magnetism  of  his  wonderful  personality 


152  The  Historic  Jesus 

kept  them  enthralled,  and  they  were  wrought  up  to 
so  high  a  state  of  tension  that  they  were  oblivious  of 
everything  but  him  and  his  gracious  words  concerning 
the  coming  of  the  Kingdom  of  God.  As  evening 
approached  some  of  the  disciples  came  to  him  to  suggest 
that  the  people  must  be  hungry.  It  would  be  well  to 
send  them  away  into  the  neighbouring  villages  to  buy 
food.  Jesus  could  not  stop  talking,  the  people  could 
not  have  him  stop.  All  were  too  much  wrought  up. 
He  seems  to  have  said  to  the  disciples,  "Give  them 
something  to  eat,"  and  to  have  gone  on  talking.  The 
disciples  came  a  second  time  with  the  question — should 
they  go  and  buy  bread  for  so  much?  Jesus  seems  to 
have  told  them  to  give  the  people  what  they  had  and 
to  have  gone  on  talking.  Afterwards  it  seemed  as  if 
they  had  all  been  fed,  but  it  was  certainly  a  case  where 
great  spiritual  excitement  entirely  suspended  the 
consciousness  of  bodily  wants.  The  experience  left  a 
great  impression,  but  to  men  of  a  later  generation  who 
had  not  shared  the  spiritual  tension  the  reports  seemed 
to  relate  to  an  astonishing  miracle,  as  the  result  of 
which  not  only  thousands  of  men  had  been  fed,  but 
more  food  was  left  than  the  original  supply.  The 
story  of  a  miracle  has  obscured  the  real  historical  fact 
that  at  times  the  preaching  of  Jesus  wrought  so  power- 
fully both  upon  him  and  his  hearers  as  to  make  both 
him  and  them  oblivious  of  everything  but  his  message. 

§  XXXIII:  Mark  vi,  46-52;  Matt,  xiv,  22-32 

The  second  account  of  the  stilling  of  the  waves  is 
but  another  version  of  the  original  story  and  illustrates 
the  method  of  writing  a  Gospel,  separate  narratives 
being  taken  either  from  earlier  Aramaic  Gospels,  of 


The  Period  of  Wandering  153 

which  there  were  several,  or  from  oral  tradition,  and 
loosely  thrown  together,  with  only  a  general  knowledge 
of  the  sequence  of  events,  the  main  purpose  being  to 
impress  the  readers  with  the  wonder-working  power  of 
Jesus,  presented  to  Jewish  Christians  as  the  Messiah 
and  to  pagans  as  the  Son  of  God.  The  different 
versions  of  what  was  originally  an  impressive  experience 
illustrate  the  working  of  the  myth-making  faculty 
among  credulous  and  enthusiastic  people.  At  first 
Jesus  quiets  the  wind  with  a  word.  In  a  later  genera- 
tion he  is  said  to  have  walked  on  the  waves  through  the 
storm,  and,  later  still,  when  Matthew's  Gospel  was 
written,  Peter  essays  to  do  the  same  thing  and  is 
sustained  on  the  water  by  Jesus.  Luke  omits  this 
narrative  from  his  Gospel. 

§  XXXIV:  Mark  vi,  53-56;  Matt,  xiv,  34-36 

On  returning  to  the  western  shore  of  the  lake  Jesus 
seems  to  have  reached  the  culmination  of  his  popularity 
with  the  common  people,  a  popularity,  however,  which 
caused  him  much  grief,  since  it  was  due  almost  entirely 
to  the  healing  of  diseases,  while  he  was  obliged  to  wait 
with  faith  and  patience  for  the  growing  of  the  seed  of 
better  things  which  he  was  sowing  upon  a  reluctant 
and  unpromising  soil. 

§§  XXXV,  XXXVI:  Markvii  1-23;  Matt,  xv,  1-20 

The  return  to  Galilee  and  consequent  renewal  of 
popular  enthusiasm  afforded  his  enemies  the  oppor- 
tunity for  a  more  systematic  attack  than  they  had 
hitherto  made  upon  him. 

For  this  purpose  scribes  and  Pharisees  came  from 


154  The  Historic  Jesus 

Jerusalem  that  with  their  superior  skill  they  might 
defeat  him  in  argument  and  damage  his  reputation 
among  the  people  as  a  dangerous  man  and  an  open 
violator  of  the  law.  These  men  soon  discovered  some 
of  the  disciples  eating  bread  without  having  first  washed 
their  hands  according  to  the  prescription  of  the 
"tradition  of  the  elders,"  which  ruled  that  the  water 
must  be  poured,  what  kind  of  water  might  be  used, 
who  might  pour  it,  and  how  far  up  the  hands  it  must  go. 
Any  infringement  of  the  rules  rendered  one  ceremonially 
unclean  and  was  held  to  be  a  serious  offence,  showing  a 
lawless  and  irreligious  disposition.  Ever  since  the 
exile,  the  object  of  the  scribes  had  been  to  separate  the 
Jewish  people  from  all  other  people,  and  the  chief 
purpose  of  the  ever-increasing  prescriptions  was  to 
emphasise  the  separateness. 

The  laws  concerning  purifications  included  cups,  pots, 
dishes,  and  seats,  the  material  of  each,  the  shape  of 
each,  the  amount  which  might  be  broken  or  lacking, 
whether  a  thing  could  be  purified  or  had  to  be  broken, 
the  kind  and  quantity  of  water  which  might  be  used 
for  purifying,  and  whether  snow,  hail,  hoar  frost,  or 
ice  might  be  mixed  with  it.  Persons  and  things 
became  "unclean"  originally  through  contact  with 
unclean  animals  dead  bodies,  or  lepers,  but  these 
earlier  rules  had  been  extended  by  the  scribes  to 
include  imcleanness  acquired  by  contact  or  association 
with  people  who  did  not  keep  the  law  down  to  its  most 
minute  detail. 

The  explanation  in  the  third  and  fourth  verses  of 
Mark's  Gospel  makes  it  evident  that  he  wrote  for 
foreigners,  who  were  unacquainted  with  Jewish  customs. 

Jesus  does  not  condescend  to  answer  the  question  of 
the  Pharisees  as  to  why  the  disciples  ate  without  first 


The  Period  of  Wandering  155 

washing  their  hands,  but  turns  upon  them  with  a 
torrent  of  denunciation,  showing  them  up  before  the 
people  as  men  who  had  made  hypocrisy  a  profession 
and  a  fine  art.  Mark's  portraiture  of  Jesus  is  that  of  a 
grand,  heroic,  and  fearless  reformer,  full  of  intense 
feeling  and  showing  at  times  impatience,  contempt,  and 
indignation.  It  is  Luke's  picture  of  a  Jesus  who  is 
never  aroused  from  a  sweet  gentleness  of  disposition 
which  has  become  the  favourite  conception  of  him  in 
the  Christian  world,  but  Mark's  picture  is  truer  to 
history.  He  certainly  knew  people  who  had  known 
Jesus  personally,  which  Luke  never  did,  and  he  wrote 
much  earlier  than  the  latter,  who  shows,  both  in  his 
Gospel  and  in  the  Book  of  the  Acts,  a  tendency  to  smooth 
over  all  roughnesses  and  disagreements  and  has  there- 
fore given  us  a  picture  of  a  "meek  and  gentle"  Jesus, 
which  is  much  further  from  history  than  Mark's  picture 
of  bitter  conflicts  and  heroic  courage. 

Jesus  turns  upon  his  enemies  with  the  assertion  that 
they  are  no  better  than  their  fathers,  whom  Isaiah  had 
denoiinced  as  hypocrites  centuries  before.  They  had 
killed  religion,  he  told  them,  with  extemalism  and 
even  set  aside  one  of  the  great  laws  which  they  recog- 
nised as  a  law  of  God,  by  recourse  to  their  traditions. 
The  law  had  said  that  a  man  must  honour  his  father 
and  mother,  which  naturally  included  his  duty  to 
provide  for  their  comfort  in  their  old  age,  but  "the 
traditions  of  the  elders"  had  made  it  possible  for  a  man 
to  tie  up  his  property  by  making  it  a  votive  offering 
for  the  benefit  of  the  temple  or  the  priests  and  to  be 
relieved  thereby  of  all  necessity  of  caring  for  his  father 
and  mother. 

Jesus,  having  put  the  Pharisees  into  a  very  uncom- 
fortable position,  called  the  people  about  him  and  gave 


156  The  Historic  Jesus 

them  one  of  his  great  sayings  concerning  the  moral 
reality  of  religion.  To  eat  without  washing  his  hands 
could  not  make  a  man  unclean,  no  external  convention- 
alities could  make  him  either  clean  or  unclean,  for  the 
really  unclean  things  came  from  within.  This  he  had 
to  explain  afterwards  to  the  disciples.  It  was  not  the 
things  which  a  man  took  into  his  stomach,  but  the 
things  which  came  out  of  his  heart,  which  made  a  man 
unclean;  the  evil  thoughts,  adulteries,  fornications, 
murders,  thefts,  covetousness,  wickedness,  deceit, 
lasciviousness,  an  evil  eye,  blasphemy,  pride,  foolish- 
ness. In  other  words,  character  was  greater  than  con- 
ventionality, or,  rather  character  was  the  real  thing  and 
conventionality  nothing.  This  was  wonderful  teach- 
ing among  a  people  to  whom  conformity  had  become  so 
important  that  character  had  dropped  out  of  sight 
altogether  and,  whenever  in  the  course  of  subsequent 
ages  an  organised  ecclesiasticism  has  hardened  people 
within  the  ruts  of  external  religion,  these  words  of 
Jesus  have  been  the  inspiration  of  reform:  "That 
which  cometh  out  of  a  man,  that  defileth  a  man,  but 
to  eat  with  unwashed  hands  defileth  not  a  man." 
It  is  an  interesting  question  whether  Jesus  realised 
the  full  force  and  application  of  what  he  had  said.  It 
was  one  of  thost  great  truths  which  came  out  of  the 
depth  of  his  heart  in  a  moment  of  exaltation,  a  direct 
intuition  of  moral  truth  without  any  intellectual 
consideration  of  its  consequences.  It  really  under- 
mined and  abrogated  the  whole  system  of  Judaism 
and  undoubtedly  some  of  the  Jews  so  understood  it, 
for  if  once  the  principle  were  allowed  that  char- 
acter was  more  important  than  conformity,  then  any 
religion  of  rules  and  observances  was  doomed. 

Luke  omits  this  account  altogether,  probably  from 


The  Period  of  Wandering  157 

his  desire  to  cover  up  all  accounts  of  controversy,  but 
Matthew's  Gospel  adds  a  statement  for  which  there 
may  be  a  good  historical  foundation.  He  says  that 
when  the  disciples  came  to  ask  Jesus  for  an  explanation 
they  told  him  that  the  Pharisees  were  very  angry,  to 
which  he  replied,  "Every  plant  which  my  heavenly 
Father  hath  not  planted  will  be  rooted  up.  Let  them 
alone:  they  be  blind  leaders  of  the  blind.  And,  if  the 
blind  lead  the  blind,  both  will  fall  into  the  ditch." 
No  one  ever  had  so  strong  a  faith  in  the  victory  of  truth 
as  Jesus,  It  seemed  to  him  like  a  divine  plant  which 
God  planted  wherever  there  was  a  promising  soil;  but 
no  other  plants  had  the  same  vitality.  They  would 
surely  wither  in  time.  Let  them  alone:  controversy 
would  do  no  good,  arguments  would  not  avail.  If 
these  men  were  not  teaching  truth,  both  they  and  their 
followers  would  come  to  grief.  Jesus  was  wonderful. 
He  had  absolute  faith  in  God  and  in  the  divine  vitaHty 
of  truth,  a  faith  which  his  followers  have  seldom  shared, 
feeling  the  rather  that  truth  could  not  survive -without 
their  assistance  and  protection. 

§  XXXVII:  Mark  vii,  24-30;  Matt,  xv,  21-28 

It  is  quite  probable  that  on  account  of  the  new  out- 
break of  hostility  Jesus  found  it  expedient  to  leave  the 
country  with  his  disciples.  He  is  said  to  have  gone 
into  the  region  north  of  Galilee  which  belonged  to 
Tyre  and  Sidon  and  to  have  remained  there  for  some 
time  in  hiding  from  his  enemies. 

The  people  of  this  region  were  not  without  know- 
ledge of  him,  for  the  main  roads  of  travel  and  commerce 
crossed  each  other  near  the  northern  end  of  the  Lake 
of  Galilee  and  there  was  much  intercourse  in  all  direc- 
tions. 


158  The  Historic  Jesus 

Believing,  as  Jesus  did,  that  the  Kingdom  of  God  was 
coming  very  soon,  God  appearing  in  the  clouds  to  open 
judgment  and  establish  his  reign,  and  that  he  was 
specially  charged  to  proclaim  its  coming  and  to  urge 
men  to  a  preparation  for  citizenship,  it  must  have  been 
with  a  crushing  heartache  that  he  turned  away  from  his 
work  and  went  as  a  fugitive  to  a  foreign  land. 

Whether  the  story  of  the  healing  of  the  daughter  of  a 
Syrophenician  woman  be  historically  true  or  not,  the 
words  assigned  to  Jesus  are  imdoubtedly  genuine  and 
disclose  the  depth  of  his  grief.  He  felt  that  his  message 
was  for  Jews,  and  yet  he  was  prevented  from  delivering 
it  to  them,  but  it  was  not  a  message  for  the  pagan  world. 
It  would  not  be  right  to  take  the  children's  bread  and 
give  it  to  dogs.  This  feeling  expressed  to  the  disciples 
may  have  been  the  nucleus  out  of  which  the  story  grew, 
while  the  reported  answer  of  the  woman  that  the  dogs 
might  eat  of  the  crumbs  which  fell  from  the  Master's 
table  seems  to  express  the  later  attitude  of  Christian 
Jews  towards  Christians  in  the  great  world  outside. 
They  might  pick  up  some  of  the  crumbs,  but  they 
were  not  the  lawful  heirs  of  the  "promises."  Paul 
always  imagined  that  the  Jews  had  a  prior  claim  and  it 
is  quite  possible  that  this  whole  account  is  a  later 
allegory  for  whi  h  the  grief  of  Jesus  at  the  loss  of 
opportunity  afforded  an  historical  basis. 

§  XXXVIII:  Mark  vii,  31-37 

Mark  alone  relates  that  Jesus,  journeying  eastward, 
came  again  into  the  domain  of  Philip,  where  he  healed 
a  deaf  man  who  had  also  an  impediment  in  his  speech. 
It  is  certainly  quite  possible,  in  accordance  with  many 
other  healings,  but  there  is  one  feature  of  the  narrative 


The  Period  of  Wandering  159 

which  makes  it  doubtful.  In  all  the  other  accounts 
the  healing  is  the  result  of  power  working  through 
belief.  In  this  case  Jesus  is  said  to  have  resorted  to 
devices  calculated  to  impress  the  imagination  of  the 
man.  So  entire  a  departure  from  his  ordinary  method 
and  the  adoption  of  the  expedients  of  professional 
exorcists  make  the  narrative  extremely  doubtful. 

§  XXXIX:  Mark  viii,  1-9;  Matt,  ocv,  32-39 

This  is  simply  the  story  of  the  feeding  of  the  multi- 
tude from  another  source  which  had  not  preserved  so 
well  the  fundamental  and  really  historical  features  of 
the  experience. 

In  the  other  account  Jesus  had  compassion  on  the 
multitude,  because  they  were  as  sheep  without  a  shep- 
herd ;  here  he  is  sorry  for  them,  because  they  are  hungry. 
Then  an  impassioned  talk  had  apparently  suspended  the 
consciousness  of  bodily  needs,  here  Jesus  sets  out  de- 
liberately to  work  a  miracle.     This  is  not  historical. 

§  §   XL,  XLI:  Mark  viii,  10-21;  Matt,  xv,  39-xvi,  12 

It  is  impossible  to  follow  the  frequent  crossings  of  the 
lake  as  related  by  Mark,  but  it  seems  very  probable 
that  the  intense  desire  on  the  part  of  Jesus  to  be  at  his 
regular  work  again  led  him  on  one  occasion  to  venture 
back  to  the  western  shore,  where  the  charm  of  his 
personality  and  the  great  number  of  his  healings  had 
already  aroused  a  feeling  among  the  people  that  he 
might  be  the  Messiah. 

To  counteract  this  the  Pharisees  met  him  soon  after 
his  landing  with  the  demand  for  a  miracle.  If  he  were 
the  Messiah  he  certainly  would  be  willing  to  prove  it 


i6o  The  Historic  Jesus 

by  showing  something  wonderful  as  the  evidence  of 
supernatural  power.  If  he  declined,  he  could  not  be 
the  Messiah  and  the  Pharisees  would  the  more  readily 
persuade  the  people  that  he  was  an  impostor.  Jesus 
declared  that  there  would  be  no  miracle  The  demand 
and  the  answer  are  evidence  that  neither  the  Pharisees, 
nor  the  people,  nor  Jesus  regarded  the  healings  as 
miraculous.  His  answer  also  makes  it  evident  that 
there  were  no  miracles  at  any  time  and  therefore  that 
all  accounts  of  miracles  are  due  to  the  later  phantasy 
of  the  Jewish  Christians,  who  believed  as  the  Pharisees 
did  that  the  Messiah  would  inevitably  work  miracles, 
and  who,  believing  that  Jesus  was  the  Messiah,  supplied 
the  miracles  to  prove  the  correctness  of  their  belief 
and  so  to  win  converts.  The  demand  for  the  miracu- 
lous on  their  part  is  evident  from  Matthew's  Gospel, 
for  by  the  time  that  Gospel  was  written  the  Christians 
could  not  be  satisfied  with  a  statement  that  Jesus  had 
said  that  there  would  be  no  miracles,  but  imagined  that 
he  had  added,  "except  the  sign  of  the  prophet  Jonah. " 
It  had  become  customary  to  take  the  story  of  Jonah 
and  the  whale  as  a  type  prophetic  of  the  physical 
resurrection  of  Jesus,  and  therefore  they  imagined  that 
Jesus  had  prophesied  in  this  enigmatical  way  his  death 
and  resurrection  to  certain  Pharisees,  all  of  which  is 
impossible;  for  Jesus  was  not  expecting  to  die,  but  to 
witness  the  coming  of  the  Kingdom  of  God.  As  he 
did  not  expect  to  die,  he  did  not  expect  a  resurrection, 
and  therefore  prophesied  neither;  nor  would  he,  having 
said  that  there  would  be  no  sign,  at  once  have  suggested 
a  sign  in  the  future  in  words  which  no  one  present  could 
have  understood. 

The  new  experience  had  been  entirely  disheartening 
and  Jesus  felt  it  necessary  to  return  again  with  his 


The  Period  of  Wandering  i6i 

disciples  to  the  eastern  shore.  On  the  way,  thinking 
over  recent  events  and  the  animus  of  the  Pharisees,  he 
broke  out  suddenly  to  the  disciples  with  the  warning, 
"Beware  of  the  leaven  of  the  Pharisees."  It  is 
perfectly  evident  to-day  what  he  meant.  The  leaven 
of  the  Pharisees  was  the  force  which  had  shaped 
the  ideas,  notions,  beliefs,  and  habits  of  the  disciples 
from  childhood  up.  Their  ideas  of  God,  sin,  judgment, 
and  atonement  were  Pharisaic.  Their  notions  of  a 
Devil,  good  and  bad  angels,  Heaven  and  Hell,  and  the 
infallibility  of  their  Scriptures  they  had  acquired  from 
the  Pharisees.  Their  belief  that  the  religious  life 
consisted  in  the  keeping  of  a  long  list  of  rules,  without 
regard  to  the  motives,  ideals,  or  desires  of  the  inner 
man,  was  the  result  of  Pharisaic  teaching. 

Such  was  the  "leaven  of  the  Pharisees,"  and  Jesus 
bid  them  beware  of  it.  It  was  necessary  not  only  to  be 
on  their  guard  against  it,  but  to  outgrow  it,  to  become 
emancipated  from  its  control  and  to  cast  it  entirely 
out  of  their  lives,  if  they  were  ever  to  attain  the  won- 
derful moral  and  spiritual  reaHties  which  he  was  trying 
to  make  them  comprehend,  and  acquire  the  living  con- 
sciousness of  God,  the  right  and  duty  of  moral  judgment, 
and  the  spontaneity  of  goodness  in  conduct,  springing 
from  the  awakened  love  of  goodness  in  the  heart.  It 
was  this  complete  change  in  the  whole  human  attitude 
which  Jesus  meant  when  he  bade  men  "repent" 
because  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  was  at  hand. 

And  yet  it  was  impossible  for  these  men  to  make  so 
complete  a  change,  or  even  to  understand  the  necessity 
for  it,  since  the  leaven  of  the  Pharisees  was  part  of  the 
very  substance  of  their  mental,  moral,  and  spiritual 
temperaments.  How  entirely  they  failed  to  under- 
stand  him  is   evident   from   the    account    that   they 


i62  The  Historic  Jesus 

thought  he  was  blaming  them  for  not  having  brought 
more  bread,  and  that  he  recalled  the  supposed  miracu- 
lous feeding  of  the  multitude  as  evidence  that  with 
a  single  loaf  he  could  make  any  amount  of  bread 
desired. 

More  than  two  generations  later  the  meaning  of 
Jesus  did  dawn  upon  the  author  of  the  first  Gospel,  for 
he  makes  Jesus  explain  that  he  was  not  referring  to  the 
leaven  of  bread,  but  to  the  doctrine  of  the  Pharisees. 

He  is  guilty  of  an  anachronism,  however,  in  adding 
the  words,  "and  of  the  Sadducees, "  for,  so  far  as  the 
Gospels  show,  Jesus  had  not  at  that  time  come  into 
contact  with  the  Sadducees  at  all.  Quite  possibly  he 
thought  that  this  was  an  improvement  upon  the  addi- 
tion, which  Mark  had  made  in  adding  the  words, 
"and  of  the  leaven  of  Herod,"  since  those  words  are 
meaningless.  One  could  not  speak  of  the  leaven  of 
Herod,  for  leaven  is  a  force,  not  an  attitude,  and,  as 
applied  to  men,  represents  the  ideas,  beliefs,  and  habits 
which  form  and  control  character.  Jesus  was  on  his 
guard  against  Herod,  but  he  could  not  have  spoken 
of  the  "leaven  of  Herod."  It  was  his  recent  experi- 
ence of  the  attitude  and  animus  of  Pharisaism  which 
made  him  warn  the  disciples  against  the  leaven  of  the 
Pharisees,  since  !"e  realised  more  clearly  than  ever  how 
entirely  these  men  must  break  away  from  their  mental 
inheritance,  if  they  were  to  render  valuable  assistance 
in  preparing  men  for  citizenship  in  the  Kingdom  of 
God. 

Luke,  who  recorded  this  saying  of  Jesus  (xii,l,)  in  an 
entirely  different  connection,  discarded  Mark's  explana- 
tion about  the  bread ;  but  was  still  far  from  understand- 
ing it,  if  he  added  the  words  "which  is  hypocrisy," 
for  hypocrisy  is  only  one  of  the  results  of  the  working 


The  Period  of  Wandering  163 

of  the  leaven  and  not  the  leaven  itself,  and  Jesus  was 
not  thinking  of  results  but  of  causes.  Luke's  explana- 
tion of  the  warning  of  Jesus,  however,  became  the 
popular  one  and  has  generally  satisfied  the  Christian 
consciousness  from  his  day  to  our  own.  It  is  quite 
possible  that  he  did  not  write  the  words  "which  is 
hypocrisy,"  but  that  they  were  originally  a  marginal 
gloss  by  some  scribe  which  later  crept  into  the  text. 

§  XLII:  Mark  viii,  22-26 

This  is  another  account  of  healing,  which  Mark 
alone  gives  and  in  which  the  introduction  of  the  method 
of  magicians  is  entirely  contrary  to  the  customs  of 
Jesus  in  making  healing  purely  the  result  of  belief,  and 
may  therefore  be  omitted  as  unhistoricaL 


II.  B.  JESUS  ON  THE  WAY  TO  JERUSALEM 

§§XLIII-LIV 

§§  XLIII,XLIV:  Mark  viii,  2y-ix,  i;  Luke  ix,  18-27; 
Matt,  xvi,  13-28 

In  consequence  of  recent  experiences  and  while  at  this 
time  in  the  territory  of  Philip,  Jesus  realised  that  he 
had  reached  a  crisis  in  his  life  and  that,  if  he  were  to 
accomplish  the  work  which  he  had  at  heart,  something 
very  serious  must  be  undertaken.  He  could  no  longer 
preach  in  GaHlee.  The  crowds  which  thronged  about 
him  everywhere  gave  few  evidences  of  any  moral 
results  of  his  preaching,  while  the  Pharisees  were  ever 
ready  with  new  attacks  and  had  largely  undermined 
his  influence.  And  then,  at  any  time,  Herod  might 
arrest  him,  under  the  pretence  that  he  was  a  dangerous 
man  who  might  incite  the  people  to  revolt.  There 
was  nothing  left  for  him  to  do  but  to  go  to  Jerusalem  in 
the  hope  of  arousing  the  nation  at  the  centre  of  its  life, 
that  the  forces  of  a  great  preparation  for  the  Kingdom  of 
God  might  spread  from  there  through  all  classes  of  the 
Jewish  people.  He  reaUsed  that  it  was  a  dangerous 
undertaking,  that  it  led  to  certain  controversy,  bitter 
hostility,  and  possibly  to  death,  and  yet  he  was  so  sure 
of  the  coming  of  the  Kingdom  of  God  and  of  his  mission 
to  proclaim  its  coming  that  the  actual  danger  of  his 
own  death  seemed  only  a  remote  possibility;  for, 
while  the  coming  of  the  Kingdom  depended  wholly 
upon  God,  he  fully  expected  to  welcome  its  coming 

164 


Jesus  on  the  Way  to  Jerusalem        165 

and  to  enter  with  joy  into  his  share  of  the  victory.  He 
had  counted  the  cost  and  had  reached  the  courageous 
decision  to  go  to  Jerusalem,  willing  to  enter  upon  the 
struggle,  to  lay  down  his  life,  if  need  be,  but  leaving 
the  result  to  God.  But  would  he  have  to  go  alone? 
Would  his  little  company  of  chosen  friends  go  with 
him,  would  they  be  willing  to  break  away  from  their 
homes,  to  leave  their  wives  and  children,  perhaps 
for  ever,  to  abandon  their  occupations  and  all  sources 
of  a  livelihood  and  set  out  upon  so  apparently  hopeless 
an  undertaking  as  that  of  attacking  the  citadel  of 
Jewish  fanaticism  and  power,  expecting  to  convert 
Sadducees  intrenched  behind  centuries  of  prestige, 
barricaded  by  vast  treasures  of  gold,  believed  by  the 
people  to  wield  the  awful  power  of  absolution  and 
friends  of  Rome;  expecting  to  win  Pharisees  from  their 
rabbinical  orthodoxy,  their  hair-splitting  legaHsm,  and 
their  satisfaction  with  the  cleanness  of  the  outside  of 
the  platter  to  the  kind  of  righteousness  exceeding  theirs 
of  which  he  said  that  it  alone  would  admit  one  to  the 
Kingdom  of  God;  expecting  to  persuade  men  who 
lived  always  under  the  shadow  of  the  temple  and  the 
schools  to  believe  the  Gospel  which  he  preached,  when 
he  had  had  so  Uttle  real  success  among  the  freer 
people  of  the  North?  Would  these  friends  of  his 
volunteer  to  go  upon  this  forlorn  hope,  not  only  sac- 
rificing everything  which  the  heart  held  dear,  but 
taking  their  lives  in  their  hands?  It  was  necessary 
for  him  to  know.  In  one  of  the  outlying  villages  near 
Caesarea  PhiUppi,  some  twenty-five  miles  north  of  the 
Lake  of  Galilee,  he  began  to  feel  his  way  with  them, 
asking  them  what  the  people  thought  of  him.  They 
knew  that  he  was  distressed  and  disappointed  and  in 
perplexity,  and  they  tried  to  comfort  him  by  showing 


i66  The  Historic  Jesus 

him  that  he  had  made  a  great  impression  upon  them. 
Some,  they  told  him,  thought  that  he  was  John  the 
Baptist  come  to  Hfe  again,  others  that  he  was  Elijah, 
and  still  others  that  he  was  one  of  the  old  prophets, 
possibly  Jeremiah,  or,  at  least,  a  new  prophet  like  the 
old  ones.  Jesus,  however,  was  leading  up  to  a  more 
important  question  and  asked  them,  "Whom  do  ye 
say  that  I  am?"  They  had  apparently  come  to  no 
conclusion.  They  were  devotedly  attached  to  him 
and  their  wonder  had  grown,  as  they  knew  him  better, 
but  they  had  not  known  what  to  think.  Peter  answered 
under  the  impulse  of  a  sudden  conviction,  "Thou 
art  the  Messiah."  It  was  the  great  critical  moment  in 
the  life  of  Jesus  and,  so  far  as  we  can  see,  in  the  history 
of  the  world,  for  out  of  that  declaration  grew  the 
journey  to  Jerusalem  and  the  subsequent  crucifixion; 
the  revival  of  belief  among  the  disciples,  the  beginning 
of  a  propaganda,  the  conversion  of  Paul,  the  rise  of  a 
new  religion  for  the  world,  and  the  conservation  of  the 
faith  and  ideality  of  Jesus,  as  the  regenerating  leaven 
of  the  human  race.  The  declaration,  coming  as  it  did 
from  Peter,  meant  that  he,  at  least,  believed  more 
than  the  people  did  concerning  Jesus.  For  him  he  was 
no  longer  a  forerunner,  like  John,  or  Elijah,  or  a  new 
prophet  preparing  the  way  for  the  Kingdom  of  God,  but 
the  actual  agent  of  God,  who  would  make  the  Kingdom 
a  reality.  Possibly  Jesus  had  begun  to  think  that  this 
might  be  his  mission  and  that  he  might  really  be  the 
Messiah,  but  of  this  he  was  not  sure.  He  would  leave 
the  result  to  God  and  while  awaiting  God's  time  he 
bade  the  disciples  keep  this  belief  to  themselves.  Neither 
he  nor  they  could  really  think  of  a  Messiah  who  was 
antagonised,  denounced,  persecuted,  and  an  actual 
fugitive  in  a  foreign  land,  nor  would  it  avail  under  such 


Jesus  on  the  Way  to  Jerusalem       167 

circumstances  to  proclaim  such  a  belief.  Let  them 
hold  it  if  they  would,  but  keep  it  to  themselves.  Jesus 
would  not  decide  the  question  for  himself,  but  would 
wait  for  circumstances  to  show  the  mind  of  God. 
Innumerable  volumes  have  been  written  upon  this 
problem,  as  to  whether  Jesus  thought  himself  the 
Messiah  or  not  and,  if  he  did,  whether  his  conception 
of  the  Messiah  was  not  entirely  different  from  the 
popular  one,  an  unpolitical,  heavenly,  or  spiritual 
Messiah,  in  place  of  the  great  conqueror  and  ruler 
expected  by  the  Jewish  people,  but  while  Jesus  cer- 
tainly had  no  political  aspirations,  there  is  nothing  in 
the  Gospels  to  show  that  he  altered  in  any  way  the 
popular  notion  of  a  Messiah  as  held  by  the  disciples. 
The  simplest  interpretation,  notwithstanding  all  that 
has  been  written  upon  the  subject,  is  that  he  did  not 
think  of  himself  as  the  Messiah  and  that  for  this  reason 
he  told  the  disciples  not  to  make  the  belief  expressed 
by  Peter  known.  Furthermore,  his  intended  journey 
to  Jerusalem,  with  its  certain  conflicts  and  unknown 
dangers,  filled  a  much  larger  place  in  his  mind  than  the 
question  whether  he  were  the  Messiah  or  not,  while  for 
us  it  is  amazing  that  the  men  who  write  the  "Lives  of 
Jesus"  can  take  the  question  of  a  Messiah  so  seriously, 
since  a  Messiah  was  simply  a  creation  of  the  Jewish 
phantasy  in  the  century  before  the  time  of  Jesus,  with- 
out any  possible  corresponding  reality.  Jesus  had  not 
seriously  considered  the  question  as  concerned  him- 
self, but,  feeling  the  burden  of  a  great  duty  weighing 
upon  him,  was  content  to  discharge  that  duty  with 
patience  and  courage  and  to  set  aside  all  subordinate 
questions  until  results  should  show  the  verdict  of  God. 
Having  bidden  the  disciples  to  keep  their  personal 
beliefs  concerning  him  to  themselves,  Jesus  disclosed 


i68  The  Historic  Jesus 

to  them  the  great  project  which  he  had  formed  for  the 
larger  execution  of  his  work.  He  would  go  to  Jerusalem 
and  hoped  that  they  would  go  with  him,  and  yet  he 
would  not  have  them  go  under  the  spur  of  devotion 
and  enthusiasm  and  without  a  full  realisation  of  the 
struggles  which  were  inevitable  and  the  danger  to  life 
which  was  probable.  A  generation  later,  after  the 
Christians  had  learned  to  put  strange  theoretical 
constructions  upon  everything  connected  with  his 
life  and  death,  it  seemed  to  them  that  he  must  at  this 
time  have  told  the  disciples  that  he  was  going  to  Jerusa- 
lem in  order  that  he  might  suffer  and  be  rejected  and 
be  put  to  death. 

They  even  got  to  thinking  that  being  put  to  death 
was  the  chief  object  and  purpose  of  his  life,  and  went  so 
far  as  to  say  that  he  had  come  into  the  world  from  a 
higher  and  heavenly  region  in  obedience  to  the  com- 
mand of  God  for  the  purpose  of  being  put  to  death,  and 
that  his  death  had  been  the  result  of  a  divine  arrange- 
ment which  made  it  possible  for  God  to  forgive  the 
sins  of  the  elect.  These  speculations  took  form  in  the 
PauHne  theology,  but  they  were  already  growing  in 
Jewish-Christian  soil  before  Paul  wrote,  since  they 
were  rooted  in  rabbinical  ideas,  while  Gentile  Christians 
had  not  the  necessary  equipment  for  setting  them  aside 
as  having  no  historical  foundation  and  as  unworthy 
of  intelligent  belief.  Thus  they  have  formed  the 
unfortunate  inheritance  of  Christendom  and  have 
served  through  all  the  centuries  to  hide  away  the  real 
Jesus  behind  the  dogmatic  barriers  of  a  petrified  specu- 
lation and  the  clouds  of  mythological  delusion.  For, 
if  Jesus  were  only  acting  a  part,  passing  through  the 
successive  phases  of  a  pre-arranged  role,  he  loses  at 
once  his  splendid  personality,  his  magnificent  heroism, 


Jesus  on  the  Way  to  Jerusalem        169 

his  glowing  enthusiasm,  his  supreme  devotion  to  his 
convictions  as  to  what  was  right  and  true,  and  becomes 
simply  a  puppet  moved  hither  and  yon  upon  the  stage 
of  life,  as  if  by  strings  held  in  the  hands  of  God,  a  mere 
plaything  of  divine  caprice,  or  the  victim  of  relentless 
fate.  The  Christian  depreciation  of  him  reached  its 
cidmination  when  a  Christian  writer  went  so  far  as  to 
say  that  he  surrendered  himself  to  the  cruelty  of  God 
for  the  sake  of  reward,  for  what  he  could  get  out  of  it 
for  himself  in  return,  "who  for  the  joy  that  was  set 
before  him  endured  the  cross,  despising  the  shame,  and 
is  set  down  at  the  right  hand  of  God. "  Heb.  xii,  2. 
This  is  positively  shocking,  but  it  shows  how  entirely 
the  early  Christians,  misled  by  their  theories,  failed  to 
comprehend  the  faith  and  hope,  the  courage  and 
devotion,  with  which  Jesus  entered  upon  his  journey  to 
Jerusalem.  He  did  not  go  in  order  that  he  might  be 
killed  and  in  fulfilment  of  a  divine  decree  requiring  his 
death,  but  to  proclaim  the  coming  of  the  Kingdom  of 
God  and  to  win  as  many  men  as  possible  into  so  sincere 
a  belief  in  its  coming  that  they  would  transform  their 
lives  and  in  the  wedding  garment  of  a  worthy  citizen- 
ship await  their  share  in  the  victory  and  joy. 

Jesus  had  not  disguised  from  himself  the  certainty  of 
struggles  worse  than  any  which  he  had  encountered  in 
Galilee,  nor  the  possibility  that  the  hatred  of  theolo- 
gians might  accomplish  his  death.  He  did  not  con- 
ceal the  prospect  from  his  disciples,  but  Peter,  full 
of  enthusiasm  over  the  belief  which  he  had  just  ex- 
pressed that  Jesus  was  the  Messiah,  found  it  incompati- 
ble with  all  his  inherited  ideas  on  the  subject  that  the 
Messiah  should  have  enemies,  or  be  obliged  to  struggle, 
or  be  roughly  handled,  or  be  in  any  danger  of  death. 
He  began  to  explain  to  him  that  the  struggles  and 


170  The  Historic  Jesus 

dangers  of  which  he  had  been  telling  them  were  im- 
possible for  the  Messiah,  who  was  to  be  a  conqueror, 
ruler,  and  judge,  and  no  doubt  tried  to  persuade  him 
not  to  go  to  Jerusalem  until  he  had  acquired  so  strong 
a  following  in  Galilee  that  he  could  go  there  in  all  the 
pride  and  power  of  the  openly  recognised  Messiah. 
Jesus  had  had  a  great  struggle  with  himself  in  coming 
to  his  resolution,  for,  while  he  was  brave,  he  shrank 
from  conflict;  but  he  needed  friends  to  encourage  him, 
not  to  weaken  him,  so  that  Peter's  attempt  to  dissuade 
him  seemed  Hke  a  covert  attack  from  Satan  himself, 
whose  kingdom  he  felt  that  he  was  engaged  in  over- 
throwing, and  he  undoubtedly  turned  upon  him  with 
the  words:  "Get  thee  behind  me,  Satan:  for  thou 
savourest  not  the  things  that  be  of  God,  but  the  things 
that  be  of  men,"  implying,  as  another  of  his  great 
principles,  that  one  ought  to  act  according  to  his 
conscience,  with  no  consideration  for  motives  of  pru- 
dence, and  to  do  what  he  believed  to  be  right  regardless 
of  consequences.  The  rebuke  to  Peter  was  afterwards 
suppressed  by  Luke,  apparently  because  it  threw  dis- 
credit upon  Peter. 

The  expression  of  the  belief  of  Peter,  which  the  other 
disciples  apparently  shared,  gave  Jesus  the  confidence 
that  he  could  depend  upon  them  as  his  companions  to 
Jerusalem,  but  he  needed  a  larger  following  and,  soon 
after  this  experience  with  them,  he  called  for  volun- 
teers from  the  larger  company  of  his  friends  to  go  with 
him  also  upon  his  perilous  journey,  but  not  until  he 
had  shown  them  fully  the  trials  and  dangers  which 
they  might  expect. 

By  the  imfortunate  inability  of  men  to  develop  an 
historical  consciousness,  the  Christian  religion  has 
often  been  interpreted  as  a  "following"  of  Jesus  and 


Jesus  on  the  Way  to  Jerusalem        171 

to  this  day  the  famiKar  theme  of  revivalism  is  the  call 
to  "follow"  him.  The  desire  and  effort,  however,  to 
incorporate  the  spirit  of  Jesus  into  one's  life  and  to 
make  his  living  faith,  his  glowing  hope,  and  his  all- 
embracing  love  the  ruling  forces  for  the  shaping  of 
conduct  are  by  no  means  a  following  of  Jesus,  for  that 
following  was  unique  and  could  not  be  repeated,  except 
at  similar  crises.  Men  were  called  upon  to  volunteer 
to  follow  him  to  Jerusalem  in  order  to  assist  in  preparing 
for  the  coming  of  the  Kingdom  of  God  by  attacking 
Judaism  at  the  centre  of  its  power,  and  Jesus  told 
them  plainly  what  it  would  cost  to  enlist  for  so  great 
an  undertaking.  It  required  the  most  absolute  and 
complete  self-denial,  and  he  always  explained  to  those 
who  were  disposed  to  follow  him  what  this  self-denial 
included.  They  would  have  to  let  everything  go — 
family,  friends,  property,  reputation,  occupation,  every- 
thing which  made  life  easy  and  pleasant  and,  taking 
their  lives  in  their  hands,  devote  themselves  body  and 
soul  to  the  one  great  purpose  of  preparing  on  a  grand 
scale  for  the  coming  of  the  Kingdom  of  God.  Men 
have  "followed"  Jesus  in  many  ages  and  in  many 
lands,  whenever  and  wherever  the  noble  ideals  of  civil 
or  religious  liberty  have  won  them  to  a  surrender  of 
everything,  even  of  life  itself,  and  impelled  them  to 
join  in  the  struggle  of  the  ages  for  the  emancipation  of 
the  body  and  the  mind;  but  to  call  the  ordinary  con- 
formity to  some  transient  orthodoxy  of  belief  or  custom 
a  "following"  of  Jesus  is  to  ignore  history  and  to  de- 
tract from  the  ideality  which  inspired  and  the  bravery 
which  carried  out  that  stupendous  undertaking. 

The  entire  lack  of  historical  consciousness  and  the 
inability  of  Christians  to  understand,  even  in  the  sim- 
plest way,  the  beliefs  and  hopes  of  Jesus  gave  rise, 


172  The  Historic  Jesus 

long  before  a  century  had  passed  away,  to  the  unfor- 
tunate delusion  that  he,  instead  of  warning  those  who 
offered  themselves  for  the  journey  to  Jerusalem  of 
the  sacrifices  which  they  must  make  and  the  dangers 
which  they  would  incur,  was  counselling  extreme 
asceticism  as  the  real  standard  of  human  excellence  for 
all  people  at  all  times.  This  led  inevitably  to  monas- 
ticism,  as  the  normal  pattern  of  religious  living,  later 
to  the  double  standard  of  morals  taught  by  Rome  and, 
later  still,  to  the  various  forms  of  fanaticism,  which 
have  darkened  the  records  of  Protestant  Christianity. 
A  little  realisation  of  history  would  have  saved  the 
world  much  blundering  and  many  chapters  of  human 
misery  would  have  remained  unwritten,  for  Jesus  was 
no  ascetic  and  never  denounced  the  honest  occupations, 
nor  the  innocent  joys  of  life;  but,  when  one  goes  to 
war,  one  leaves  behind  the  ordinary  pursuits  and  all 
the  pleasant  entanglements  of  peace,  and  Jesus  was 
going  to  war,  to  war  in  its  most  bitter,  cruel,  and  relent- 
less form,  a  war  against  priests,  theologians,  fanatics, 
and  the  passions  and  prejudices  of  the  multitude. 
Those  who  would  enlist  for  such  a  war  must  go  in 
light  marching  order,  entirely  free  from  all  the  bonds 
which  ordinarily  unite  one  to  family, business,  or  society. 
This  is  all  thvre  is  in  the  so-called  "ascetic  side" 
of  the  teaching  of  Jesus,  for  he  was  not  laying  down 
rules  for  other  men,  in  other  ages,  rules  for  all  time,  the 
observance  of  which  should  make  men  his  "followers," 
least  of  all  was  he  legislating  for  a  great  world-wide 
religion  organised  into  a  Church.  Such  an  idea  was 
contrary  to  everything  that  he  believed  and  lived  for. 
For  him  the  Kingdom  of  God  was  coming  and,  at  the 
very  latest,  within  the  lifetime  of  some  of  those  to 
whom  he  was  talking,  for  he  said  to  them  (Mk.  ix,  i): 


Jesus  on  the  Way  to  Jerusalem       173 

"Verily  I  say  unto  you,  There  be  some  here,  of  them 
that  stand  by,  who  will  in  no  wise  taste  of  death,  till 
they  see  the  Kingdom  of  God  come  with    power." 

While  he  took  particular  care  that  no  one  should 
volunteer  for  the  journey  to  Jerusalem  without  a 
clear  understanding  of  the  sacrifices  which  his  action 
entailed,  he  did  not  say  that  any  one  must  take  up  his 
cross;  for,  in  the  first  place,  he  was  not  expecting  to  be 
killed,  and,  if  he  had  had  any  such  anticipation,  it 
would  not  have  taken  the  form  of  a  crucifixion  by 
the  Roman  authorities.  The  Jewish  mode  of  killing 
people  was  by  stoning,  but  the  power  of  life  and  death 
had  been  taken  away  from  them  by  the  Roman  Govern- 
ment and,  as  Jesus  had  done  nothing  to  arouse  its 
hostility,  it  seemed  to  him  that,  if  he  were  to  lose  his 
life,  it  could  be  only  through  mob  violence  or  by  means 
of  a  hired  assassin.  The  reference  to  taking  up  the 
cross  dates  from  the  early  persecutions  of  Christians 
by  the  Jews,  during  which  it  seemed  to  the  Christians 
that  there  was  to  be  a  continuous  "following"  of  Jesus 
in  ways  which  led  to  persecution  and  death. 

After  he  had  shown  the  people  the  sacrifices  and 
dangers  of  the  movement  upon  Jerusalem,  he  made 
the  strongest  possible  appeal  to  them  to  enlist  for  the 
great  undertaking.  Suppose  a  man  should  shrink 
from  the  sacrifices  and  dangers  in  order  to  save  his 
life  and  the  things  which  made  it  comfortable  and 
pleasant,  he  would  not  save  it  after  all;  for,  when  the 
Kingdom  came,  he  would  be  fotmd  an  unprofitable 
servant,  imworthy  of  citizenship,  and  would  be  swept 
away  in  the  great  destruction  which  would  remove  all 
obstacles  from  the  new  dominion  of  righteousness  and 
joy.  If,  therefore,  they  held  back  from  the  attack 
upon  Jerusalem,   they  must   not   deceive   themselves 


174  The  Historic  Jesus 

with  any  feeling  of  false  security,  for  whosoever  under- 
took to  save  his  life  would  lose  it.  On  the  other  hand, 
whosoever  had  enough  faith  and  interest  in  the  Kingdom 
of  God  to  sacrifice  everything  for  it  now,  would,  when 
it  came,  be  rewarded  a  hundred-fold  in  lands,  houses, 
friends,  and  everything  which  made  life  a  joy;  for 
all  the  good  things  of  the  world  would  be  redis- 
tributed among  those  who  had  proved  themselves 
worthy  of  citizenship.  Therefore,  he  who  was  willing 
to  lose  his  life  now  for  the  sake  of  Jesus  and  his  message 
would  save  it  for  the  glories  and  the  joys  of  the  grand 
Kingdom  of  God  when  it  should  come;  for,  while  the 
coming  Kingdom  would  be  full  of  righteousness,  it 
would  be  quite  as  material  as  the  existing  kingdom  of 
"the  prince  of  this  world"  and  all  things  would  go  on 
as  at  present,  but  without  the  disfigurements  of  in- 
justice, disease,  poverty,  and  crime. 

The  argument  of  Jesus  with  the  people  was  all  in 
the  question  what  good  would  it  do  them  if  they  held 
on  to  their  possessions  and  accumulated  more  and  more 
until  they  owned  the  earth,  if  they  were  to  lose  life 
itself  in  the  great  judgment  which  would  precede  the 
inauguration  of  the  Kingdom;  what  would  it  profit  a 
man  if  he  gained  the  whole  world  and  lost  his  own 
soul? 

The  alternative  presented  to  them  was  much  more 
vivid  than  it  is  to  modem  Christians  who  interpret 
being  saved  or  lost  with  reference  to  far-off,  ill-defined 
possibilities  after  death,  whereas  to  the  men  who  lis- 
tened to  Jesus  and  beHeved  him  the  Kingdom  of  God 
was  a  magnificent  reality  sure  to  come  to  pass  within  a 
few  short  years,  while  to  be  saved  was  to  pass  the 
examination  for  admission,  and  to  be  lost  was  the  failure 
to  pass  and  the  consequent  being  swept  away  to  de- 


Jesus  on  the  Way  to  Jerusalem        175 

struction.  What  would  it  profit  a  man  to  gain  the 
whole  world  and  lose  his  own  life? 

Jesus  is  said  to  have  closed  and  enforced  his  call  for 
volunteers  by  declaring  that  if  they  did  not  accept 
him  and  his  message,  the  "Son  of  Man"  would  not 
recognise  them  when  he  came  in  the  glory  of  his 
Father  with  the  holy  angels.  This  represents  later 
beliefs  among  the  early  Jewish  Christians  and  cannot 
have  come  from  him,  for  he  cannot  have  used  the  term 
"Son  of  Man"  in  two  different  ways,  to  mean  now  one 
thing  and  again  something  else.  With  him  it  was 
the  common  word  for  "man."  With  part  of  the 
population  and  later  among  Jewish  Christians  it  was 
an  expression  for  "The  Messiah,"  He  was  not  inter- 
ested in  Messianic  beliefs  and  theories.  This  whole 
passage  is  expressed  in  the  terms  of  later  beliefs. 

Beginning  with  this  great  crisis  in  the  experience  of 
Jesus,  it  must  be  recognised  as  a  necessary  historical 
correction  of  the  traditions  which  became  incorporated 
in  the  Gospels  that  all  the  supposed  explanations  with 
reference  to  his  journey  to  Jerusalem  are  due  to  the 
theological  speculations  of  the  Christians  a  generation 
after  the  events  and  could  not  by  any  possibility  have 
been  made  by  him.  He  was  not  going  to  Jerusalem 
for  the  purpose  of  being  killed,  but  solely  in  order  to 
proclaim  the  coming  of  the  Kingdom  of  God,  and 
because  he  believed,  as  he  told  the  priests  after  his 
arrival,  that  the  time  had  come  when  God  would  take 
away  the  vineyard  from  its  present  imworthy  husband- 
men and  give  it  to  new  husbandmen  who  would  render 
to  him  its  normal  fruits. 

*'Thou  art  Peter" 
In  comparing  the  accounts  of  the  great  event  at 


176  The  Historic  Jesus 

Caesarea  Philippi  in  the  Synoptic  Gospels,  we  find  in  the 
Gospel  of  Matthew  an  interpolated  passage,  consisting 
of  the  seventeenth,  eighteenth,  and  nineteenth  verses 
of  the  sixteenth  chapter,  which  has  exercised  a  tre- 
mendous influence  in  the  development  of  the  Christ- 
ian world  and  has  served  to  defeat  or  retard  the  work 
of  Jesus  by  re-establishing  on  a  larger  scale  the  very 
things  for  the  abolition  of  which  he  struggled,  an  abso- 
lute hierarchy,  a  petrified  dogmatism,  a  convention- 
alised legalism,  and  the  entire  mental  attitude  which  he 
included  under  "the  leaven  of  the  Pharisees." 

The  passage  begins  by  making  Jesus  declare  in  re- 
sponse to  Peter's  recognition  of  him  as  "the  Messiah, 
the  Son  of  the  living  God,"  in  which  both  Jewish  and 
pagan  interpretations  are  combined  into  a  single  formula 
that  this  declaration  was  the  direct  result  of  divine 
inspiration,  that  he  never  would  have  come  to  such  a 
belief  by  the  use  of  intelligence  and  reason,  but  divine 
illumination  had  enabled  him  to  see  through  the  dis- 
guise of  poverty  and  humiliation  and  to  recognise  in 
Jesus  both  the  real  Messiah  of  the  Jews  and  the  great 
Son  of  God  who  would  eventually  be  known  as  such 
throughout  the  whole  pagan  world. 

The  writers  of  the  earlier  Gospels  had  no  such  theory 
on  the  subject,  1,  ut  represent  Peter's  belief  as  the  natural 
result  of  his  own  thought.  What  the  writer  of  Matthew's 
Gospel  seems  to  have  gained  is  the  conclusion  that 
Jesus  recognised  the  beliefs  expressed  by  Peter  as 
true  and  accepted  for  himself  all  that  they  implied,  a 
very  serious  matter,  which  is  at  least  left  doubtful 
by  the  earlier  Gospels.  This  conclusion  implied  in 
Matthew's  Gospel  is  to  be  taken  not  as  a  corrective  of 
the  earlier  and  less  definite  accounts,  but  simply  as  the 
historical  record  of  the  development  of  Christian  belief 


*'  Thou  Art  Peter  "  177 

upon  this  question  and  quite  probably  of  the  belief 
which  later  became  general,  that  all  conversions  to  the 
new  religion  were  due  to  supernatural  agency. 

On  the  strength  of  this  assumed  revelation  to  Peter, 
Jesus  is  made  to  declare  to  him : 

"Thou  art  Peter,  and  upon  this  rock  1  will  build  my 
Church;  and  the  gates  of  hell  will  not  prevail  against  it. 
And  I  will  give  unto  thee  the  keys  of  the  Kingdom  of 
Heaven:  and  whatsoever  thou  shalt  bind  on  earth  will 
be  bound  in  heaven;  and  whatsoever  thou  shalt  loose 
on  earth  will  be  loosed  in  heaven. " 

There  is  nothing  in  the  Gospels  concerning  which  it  is  so 
necessary  to  reach  a  sane  and  sober  conclusion,  as  to 
whether  it  be  true  or  false,  genuine  or  spurious,  as 
this  passage.  All  the  historic  Churches  base  their 
claims  and  pretensions  upon  its  assumed  genuineness. 
Protestantism  also  accepts  it  as  true,  while  trying  to 
escape  its  inevitable  conclusions  through  the  weak  sub- 
terfuge of  claiming  that  the  "rock"  was  not  Peter, 
but  Peter's  confession.  For,  if  Jesus  said  these  words, 
then  he  founded  a  Church  and  regarded  the  founding 
of  a  Church  as  his  chief  piupose  in  life.  A  Church  is 
a  self -perpetuating  religious  organism  and  an  organism 
requires  an  organic  life.  A  Church  would  therefore 
need  a  foundation  stone,  a  head,  a  centre  of  authority, 
which  could  speak  with  the  voice  of  God.  If  Jesus 
founded  a  Church,  it  was  as  reasonable  that  he  should 
found  it  upon  Peter  and  give  him  the  absolute  power  of 
legislation  as  upon  any  one  else,  and  more  reasonable 
if  Peter  had  been  made  the  sole  recipient  of  a  divine 
revelation.  It  is  therefore  absolutely  incumbent  upon 
all  who  would  be  honest  with  themselves  to  ascertain 


178  The  Historic  Jesus 

the  truth  upon  this  matter  and,  if  it  be  proved  that 
Jesus  really  did  found  a  Church  and  that  he  was 
possessed  of  absolute  divine  power  to  found  and  equip 
it  and  had  come  into  this  world  from  a  throne  in  heaven 
for  this  special  purpose,  to  give  themselves  no  rest  until 
they  have  reached  a  sure  conviction  as  to  which  among 
the  historic  claimants  is  the  lineal  descendant  from  the 
original  foundation  upon  the  "rock,  "  and  then,  having 
discovered  the  Church,  to  submit  without  reserve  to  all 
the  regulations  of  belief  and  morals,  which,  having 
been  bound  on  earth  by  Peter  and  his  successors,  are 
bound  in  heaven.  We  may  not  decide  so  serious  a 
question  by  means  of  our  feelings,  inclinations,  tastes, 
habits,  prejudices,  or  inherited  beliefs,  but  only  by 
bringing  it  before  the  cold  and  unimpassioned  bar  of 
historical  investigation. 

We  may  examine  the  witnesses  in  chronological 
order. 

The  first  in  point  of  time  is  Paul.  In  his  Epistle  to 
the  Galatians  he  relates  that,  not  long  after  his  con- 
version, he  went  to  Jerusalem  to  see  Peter  and  that  he 
spent  two  weeks  with  him,  also  that  on  that  occasion 
he  saw  none  of  the  other  apostles,  except  James,  the 
brother  of  Jesus.  It  is  evident  that,  if  Peter  had 
received  such  a  tremendous  commission,  with  the  power 
of  the  keys  and  authority  to  regulate  all  matters  of 
belief,  worship,  and  conduct,  he  would,  during  those 
two  weeks  have  explained  the  matter  to  Paul,  who, 
being  duly  impressed,  would  have  bowed  to  the 
authority  of  Peter,  humbly  requesting  for  himself 
permission  to  preach  the  Gospel  to  the  Gentiles  and 
that,  ever  thereafter,  he  would  have  instructed  his 
converts  as  to  the  unique  and  supreme  position  which 
Peter  occupied  in  the  Church.     As  we  find  him  doing 


"Thou    Art    Peter"  179 

nothing  of  the  sort,  the  supposition  is  very  strong  that 
Peter  had  given  him  no  such  information. 

On  the  contrary,  in  this  same  Epistle,  Paul  takes 
special  pains  to  make  it  clear  that  he  did  not  receive 
authority  from  Peter,  nor  from  any  one  else,  but 
declares  that  he  is  an  apostle  "not  from  man,  neither 
through  man,  but  through  Jesus  Christ  and  God  the 
Father."  Such  language  would  have  been  impossible 
if  Peter  had  been  given  supreme  authority  by  Jesus 
and  had  informed  Paul  of  the  fact. 

But  Paul  goes  further.  He  says  that  fourteen  years 
later  he  went  to  Jerusalem  again,  taking  with  him 
Barnabas  and  Titus.  At  this  visit  he  finds  that  three 
men  were  "reputed  to  be  pillars." 

If  Jesus  said  these  words  to  Peter,  he  said  them  in 
the  presence  of  all  the  apostles  and  yet,  more  than 
twenty  years  later,  none  of  the  Christians  in  Jerusalem 
had  heard  of  them,  but,  among  them  three,  Peter, 
James,  and  John,  seemed  to  be  prominent,  while  of  the 
three  we  know  that  it  was  James,  not  Peter,  who 
enjoyed  what  precedence  there  was.  Paul  declared 
further  that  the  three  "pillars"  (those  who  seemed  to 
be  somewhat)  gave  to  him  and  Barnabas  the  right  hand 
of  fellowship  that  they  should  go  to  the  Gentiles,  the 
Jerusalem  Christians  reserving  for  themselves  the 
mission  to  the  Jews.  This  is  an  undoubted  historical 
fact  and  it  throws  much  light  upon  the  question  under 
consideration.  About  thirty-five  years  after  these 
supposed  words  of  Jesus,  the  apostles  themselves  did 
not  act  upon  them,  which  is  very  good  evidence  that 
they  had  never  heard  of  them.  It  was  not  Peter,  act- 
ing upon  authority  conferred  on  him  by  Jesus,  who 
decided  the  question  of  a  Christian  mission  among  the 
pagans,  but  the  three  most  prominent  men  among  the 


i8o  The  Historic  Jesus 

Christians  in  Jerusalem,  who  agreed  to  divide  the  field 
with  Barnabas  and  Paul.  None  of  those  who  came 
to  this  agreement  could  have  heard  that  Jesus  had 
said  upon  a  most  solemn  occasion,  "Thou  art 
Peter,  and  on  this  rock  I  will  build  my  Church, 
etc." 

Pursuing  the  study  of  history,  we  find  that  some  of 
those  who  had  made  the  agreement  with  Paul  and 
Barnabas  did  not  keep  it;  for  James,  having  heard  of 
the  success  which  they  were  having  in  Antioch,  sent 
thither  some  spies  to  ascertain  whether  "the  law" 
were  properly  observed  or  not. 

Before  their  arrival  Peter  had  fallen  into  some  of  the 
new  ways  so  far  as  to  eat  at  the  same  table  with  Gen- 
tiles; but,  on  their  arrival,  knowing  that  this  would 
bring  him  into  trouble  with  James  and  the  Christians 
generally  in  Jerusalem,  withdrew  and  stopped  eating 
with  the  Gentiles.  This  made  Paul  angry,  so  that  he 
called  Peter  a  coward  in  public  and  denounced  him  as  a 
man  without  convictions.  This  very  human  narrative 
teaches  us  several  things.  If  Peter  had  received  from 
Jesus  a  commission  as  the  head  of  the  Church,  with 
power  to  regulate  everything  on  earth  as  with  absolute 
divine  authority,  he  would  have  settled  the  whole 
matter  of  eating  with  Gentiles,  and  all  other  matters 
upon  which  differences  of  opinion  might  arise,  upon  his 
own  authority,  as  the  supreme  legislative  power  of  the 
Church,  and  Paul  and  every  one  else  would  have  been 
obliged  to  abide  by  his  decision.  He  certainly  would 
not  have  been  afraid  of  James,  and  Paul  would  not 
have  dared  to  withstand  the  vicegerent  of  Jesus.  It 
is  evident  that  Peter  had  not  heard  of  his  supposed 
commission.  Again,  when  Paul  heard  that  there 
were  controversies  in   Corinth,   if  he  had  known  of 


''Thou  Art   Peter"  i8i 

Peter's  selection  as  the  "rock"  on  which  the  Church 
was  founded,  with  the  supreme  right  to  govern,  he 
certainly  would  have  written  to  the  troublesome 
Christians  of  that  city:  In  all  matters  of  controversy, 
refer  to  Peter  and  abide  by  his  decision.  On  the  con- 
trary, he  wrote,  "Other  foundation  can  no  man  lay 
than  that  which  is  laid,  which  is  Jesus  Christ."  It 
is  evident  from  his  testimony  that  he  knew  nothing  of 
Peter's  supposed  commission.  Believing,  as  he  did, 
that  the  work  of  Jesus  was  a  work  of  emancipation 
and  not  the  establishment  of  a  new  authority  over 
belief  and  morals,  he  wrote  to  the  Christians  in  Galatia : 
"With  freedom  did  Christ  set  us  free;  stand  fast, 
therefore,  and  be  not  entangled  again  in  a  yoke  of 
bondage." 

The  next  witness  is  Mark,  who  wrote  his  Go.spel 
not  long  before  the  year  70  A.D.,  and  who  reflects 
therein  the  beliefs  which  were  commonly  held  by  the 
Christians  at  the  end  of  the  first  Christian  generation. 
He  was  well  acquainted  with  Paul  and,  according  to  the 
statement  of  Papias,  which  is  generally  believed,  also 
with  Peter.  He  gave  a  circumstantial  account  of  the 
event  at  Cassarea  Philippi,  but  it  contains  not  the 
slightest  suggestion  of  any  commission,  authority,  or 
supremacy  given  to  Peter.  As  there  is  very  strong 
probability  that  he  knew  Peter  intimately,  he  certainly 
would  have  known  of  his  extraordinary  position  as  the 
head  of  the  Church,  if  any  such  office  had  been  con- 
ferred upon  him;  but  he  knows  nothing  of  it,  neither 
does  Luke,  who,  writing  a  generation  later,  made 
diligent  investigation  of  all  sources,  both  written  and 
oral,  as  he  states  in  his  introduction,  concerning  the 
teaching  and  acts  of  Jesus.  This  makes  it  evident  that, 
up  to  the  year  100  A.D.,  no  one  among  the  Christians 


1 82  The  Historic  Jesus 

had  heard  of  any  position  of  authority  or  supremacy 
which  had  been  bestowed  upon  Peter. 

But  the  most  important  witness  in  this  matter  is 
Jesus  himself,  as  the  memory  of  what  he  had  said  and 
done  survived  and  has  come  down  to  us  in  the  earliest 
written  Gospel.  The  record  is  perfectly  clear  that  the 
burden  of  his  preaching  and  the  source  of  his  enthusiasm 
and  devotion  was  the  coming  of  the  Kingdom  of  God,  and 
we  know  perfectly  well  what  this  meant  to  him  and  to 
those  who  heard  him.  It  meant  that  the  evil  affairs 
of  this  world  had  nearly  finished  their  course,  that  the 
days  of  Satanic  control  were  nearly  over,  that  God 
himself  would  soon  appear  in  the  clouds  to  put  an  end 
to  all  wickedness,  to  judge  and  destroy  the  wicked,  and 
to  establish  his  personal  rule  and  sovereignty  in  a 
regenerated  and  reconstructed  Judaism.  With  this 
beUef  glowing  in  his  heart  and  constituting  the  great 
motive  power  which  controlled  his  actions,  Jesus  could 
not  at  the  same  time  have  held  another  belief  so  totally 
different  from  this  as  to  amount  to  an  entire  denial  of 
it.  A  "Church"  is  an  organised  reHgious  life,  with  the 
necessary  machinery  for  control  and  self -perpetuation. 
Jesus  could  not,  therefore,  have  thought  or  spoken 
of  himself  as  founding  a  Church,  while  he  was  occupied 
in  proclaiming  ^he  coming  of  the  Kingdom  of  God, 
for  the  latter  was  to  come  soon,  at  least  within  a  genera- 
tion, which  made  any  permanent  organisation  super- 
fluous. It  was  also  to  come  suddenly,  it  might  be 
"at  even,  at  midnight,  at  cock-crowing,  or  in  the 
morning,"  not  through  the  machinery  of  any  human 
organisation,  but  by  the  will  of  God,  and  men  were 
not  expected  to  organise,  but  were  bidden  to  "watch." 
The  ideas  of  a  "Church"  and  the  Kingdom  of  God  are 
so  mutually  exclusive  that  to  imagine  for  a  moment 


"Thou   Art   Peter"  183 

that  Jesus  thought  of  himself  as  the  founder  of  a  per- 
manent religious  institution  would  make  it  necessary 
to  omit  from  the  Gospel  the  entire  record  of  what  he 
believed  and  taught  concerning  the  Kingdom  of  God. 
The  unwillingness  of  Christians  to  face  the  alternative 
honestly  and  their  attempt  to  escape  it  by  pretending 
that  the  Kingdom  of  God  is  the  Church  is  to  befog 
the  human  mind  and  to  belie  the  sober  facts  of  history, 
while  it  puts  Jesus  into  the  impossible  position  of 
knowingly  talking  to  the  people  in  language  which 
meant  one  thing  to  them  and  something  totally  differ- 
ent to  himself.  It  is  better  to  be  true  to  ourselves, 
true  to  Jesus,  and  true  to  history,  and,  knowing  what 
the  Kingdom  of  God  meant  to  him,  to  realise  that  the 
idea  of  a  Church  was  entirely  foreign  to  his  mind  and 
is  due  solely  and  altogether  to  the  creative  genius  of 
Paul,  who,  in  preaching  a  new  rehgion  to  the  greater 
world,  found  an  organisation  for  the  training  and 
defence  of  his  converts  necessary  and  applied  to  that 
organisation  the  familiar  Greek  term  ecclesia,  of  which 
Jesus  had  never  heard. 

Furthermore,  Jesus  is  represented  in  this  extraor- 
dinary passage,  not  only  as  speaking  of  foiinding  a 
Church,  but  as  conferring  supreme  power  upon  Peter, 
as  the  vicegerent  of  God,  with  the  right  to  regulate 
everything  pertaining  to  belief  and  morals  and  with 
the  satisfaction  of  knowing  that  all  his  decisions  would 
be  ratified  "in  heaven." 

This  is  entirely  contrary  to  the  teaching  of  Jesus  who. 
according  to  this  same  "Matthew,"  instructed  his  disci- 
ples, "  Call  no  man  your  father  on  earth ;  for  one  is  your 
Father  in  heaven.  Neither  be  ye  called  masters,  for 
one  is  your  Master  (even  the  Clirist).  But  he  that  is 
greatest  among  you  shall  be  your  servant.     And  who- 


184  The  Historic  Jesus 

soever  shall  exalt  himself  will  be  humbled;  and  whoso- 
ever humbleth  himself  will  be  exalted."  Having 
given  the  disciples  this  teaching,  Jesus  certainly  did 
not  exalt  one  of  their  number  to  a  place  of  supremacy 
over  the  rest.  Having  endeavoured  to  teach  these 
men  the  supremacy  of  conscience  and  the  service  of 
humanity  as  the  highest  duty,  he  did  not  turn  right 
about  and  teach  them  to  recognise  the  supremacy  of  a 
new  hierarchy  and  the  duty  of  conformity.  This  same 
"Matthew"  relates  that  two  of  the  disciples  requested 
for  themselves  the  places  of  highest  honour  in  his 
Kingdom,  which  aroused  the  jealousy  of  the  other 
disciples,  but  that  Jesus  made  the  request  and  conse- 
quent jealousy  the  occasion  for  serious  instruction, 
saying  to  them:  "Ye  know  that  the  princes  of  the 
Gentiles  exercise  dominion  over  them,  and  they  that 
are  great  exercise  authority  over  them.  But  it  shall 
not  be  so  among  you;  but  whosoever  will  be  great  among 
you,  let  him  be  your  servant ;  and  whosoever  will  be 
chief  among  you,  let  him  be  your  slave. " 

It  is  evident,  therefore,  both  from  the  fact  that  no 
one  among  the  Christians,  at  least  before  the  year  100 
A.D.,  had  heard  of  any  special  position  or  authority 
given  to  Peter  and  that  any  such  commission  is  entirely 
contrary  to  the  I  alief  and  teaching  of  Jesus,  that  the 
three  verses  in  question  are  nothing  less  than  a  de- 
liberate forgery.  The  parties  who  were  guilty  of  the 
forgery  were  no  doubt  those  who  profited  by  it  and 
that  was  the  Christians  in  Rome. 

The  very  idea  of  a  heavenly  gatekeeper,  armed  with 
the  power  of  the  keys,  was  Roman  and  would  never  have 
occurred  to  Jesus,  nor  to  any  one  sprung  from  the 
Semitic  race,  nor  even  to  the  Greeks,  among  whom  it 
was  the  "Hours"  who  opened  and  shut  the  heavenly 


"Thou   Art    Peter"  185 

doors.  Among  the  Romans  it  was  Janus  who  was 
believed  to  possess  the  "power  of  the  keys"  and  was 
called  "The  Gatekeeper  of  the  Heavenly  Halls" 
(Ovid,  Fasti,  I.,  v.,  137  ff.)-  He  was  represented  with 
a  staff  in  his  right  hand  and  keys  in  his  left  hand,  pre- 
cisely as  is  Peter  who  has  succeeded  and  displaced  him. 
The  Romans  did  not  kiss  the  feet  of  his  statues,  but  the 
Sicilians  kissed  the  feet  of  a  statue  of  Hercules,  as  is 
related  by  Cicero,  so  that  Peter  has  inherited  the  honour 
of  Hercules,  as  well  as  the  power  of  Janus.  Nor  was 
the  kissing  of  the  feet  of  statues  unknown  in  pagan 
Rome,  since  the  women  kissed  a  foot  of  a  statue  of 
Isis,  as  they  still  kiss  a  foot  of  a  statue  of  the  Madonna 
del  Parto  in  the  Church  of  Sant'  Agostino.  Paganism 
is  continuous.     Nothing  is  changed  but   the  names. 

But  the  Christians  in  Rome  had  other  reasons  for 
their  forgery  than  the  mere  perpetuation  of  pagan  ideas 
and  customs,  for  they  had  acquired  the  Roman  lust 
for  power. 

Early  in  the  second  century  the  confusion  arising 
from  the  great  nimiber  of  discordant  traditions,  be- 
liefs, practices,  and  written  Gospels  made  it  necessary 
to  discover  or  devise  some  authority  that  should 
decide  which  Gospels  should  be  read,  what  things  were 
to  be  believed,  what  mode  of  worship  observed,  and 
what  moral  code  established.  Gradually  it  came  to  be 
recognised  that  such  cities  as  could  boast  of  an  apostolic 
foundation  could  make  a  more  valid  claim  than  the 
rest  to  speak  with  authority  on  all  such  matters. 
Alexandria,  Antioch,  and  Ephesus  were  the  only  cities 
which  could  make  such  a  claim.  It  did  not,  however, 
suit  the  temper  of  the  Christians  in  Rome  to  occupy 
a  subordinate  position  to  those  who  lived  in  provincial 
cities,  for,  although  they  were  mostly  foreigners,  Jews, 


i86  The  Historic  Jesus 

Syrians,  and  Greeks,  one  could  not  live  long  in  Rome 
without  acquiring  the  spirit  of  Roman  dominion. 
They  would  exercise  an  authority  equal  to  or  better 
than  that  of  any  city  in  the  Empire  and,  instead  of 
referring  to  others,  men  should  inquire  of  them  as  to 
Christian  belief  and  practice.  Only  one  thing  was 
lacking:  Rome  had  no  apostolic  foundation.  It  was 
necessary  to  create  one.  There  began  to  be  rumours 
which  grew  rapidly  into  a  legend  and  this,  in  a  credu- 
lous and  uncritical  age,  easily  acquired  credence,  that 
Peter  had  been  the  actual  founder  of  the  Church  in 
Rome  and  that,  therefore,  it  possessed  an  authority 
equal  to  that  of  any  city  of  the  Empire.  It  soon  laid 
claim  to  a  greater  authority.  The  question  whether 
Peter  was  ever  really  in  Rome  or  not  will  never  be 
settled  to  the  satisfaction  of  all,  but,  if  he  had  been 
there  in  the  earlier  days  before  the  coming  of  Paul  there 
would  be  more  certain  evidence  of  the  fact  than  the 
legend  which  connects  him  with  Simon  Magus,  or  the 
footprints  of  Jesus  in  the  stone  when  he  was  turned 
back  in  his  supposed  flight  from  martyrdom.  Further- 
more, if  he  had  suffered  martyrdom  in  Rome,  during 
the  persecution  imder  Nero,  in  the  year  64  a.d.,  there 
would  have  been  a  festival  commemorative  of  the  fact 
during  the  monfi  of  August,  in  which  that  persecution 
took  place.  There  is  a  "Festum  Petri  ad  Vincula" 
on  the  first  of  August,  but  it  has  reference  to  the 
chains,  still  preserved  and  shown,  said  to  have  been 
acquired  at  Jerusalem  in  the  fifth  century  by  Eudolia, 
wife  of  Theodosius  II,  and  to  have  been  presented  to  the 
Church  in  Rome  by  her  daughter  Eudoxia,  as  evidence 
and  mementoes  of  his  imprisonment  in  Jerusalem. 
The  only  other  festival  which  commemorates  him  in 
the  Roman  calendar  is  that  of  Peter  and  Paul  on  the 


*'Thou    Art  Peter"  187 

29th  of  June,  in  which  the  two  supposed  founders  of 
the  Roman  Church  have  replaced  Romulus  and  Remus, 
the  more  ancient  reputed  foiuiders  of  the  city  itself. 
The  claim,  therefore,  that  Peter  founded  the  Church  in 
Rome  rests  upon  nothing  stronger  than  legend,  but 
the  use  that  was  made  of  the  legend  proves  its  purpose, 
Rome  would  enjoy  the  dignity  and  authority  of  resting 
upon  an  apostolic  foundation  and,  having  established 
this  claim,  the  Roman  Christians  went  one  step  further 
and  pretended  that  they  were  entitled  to  pre-eminence 
over  all  other  churches,  because  Peter  had  been  made 
supreme  over  the  other  apostles.  Thus  this  iniquity 
was  concocted  and  developed  in  the  city  which  has 
profited  by  it  ever  since.  The  Gospel  which  bears 
the  name  of  Matthew  was  undoubtedly  compounded, 
altered,  amended,  and  published  in  Rome,  while  its 
strong  ecclesiastical  tendencies  show  that  it  could  not 
have  been  written  until  ecclesiasticism  was  well  de- 
veloped, therefore  not  in  its  present  shape  before  the 
year  120  a.d. 

This  passage  may  have  found  its  way  into  it  then, 
or  it  may  be  of  a  still  later  date,  after  episcopacy,  by 
supposed  apostolic  succession,  had  become  an  estab- 
lished fact,  that  is  after  the  middle  of  the  second  century. 
Rome  had  no  bishop  until  167  a.d.,  but  was  governed 
by  presbyters,  with  one  of  their  number  chosen  to 
preside,  nor  any  pope,  with  the  claim  of  supremacy 
over  other  bishops,  before  the  fifth  century ;  nor  did  she 
win  the  battle  for  papal  supremacy  until  the  capture 
of  Alexandria,  Antioch,  and  Jerusalem  by  the  Saracens 
had  left  her  the  undisputed  mistress  of  the  field. 

These  later  iniquities,  however,  were  contained  as 
germs  in  the  original  forgery,  which,  when  we  consider 
the  crimes  which  it  has  entailed  and  the  power  over 


1 88  The  Historic  Jesus 

intelligence  and  conduct  which  it  still  puts  into  the 
hands  of  the  various  priesthoods,  must  be  recognised 
as  the  most  colossal  and  successful  fraud  ever  perpe- 
trated upon  the  human  race  and  the  source  of  more 
iniquity,  oppression,  and  misery  than  anything  ever 
concocted  by  the  mind  of  man;  for  out  of  it  have  come 
the  Papacy,  the  confessional,  the  inquisition,  perse- 
cutions, Jesuitism,  a  frightful  list  of  religious  murders, 
and  the  organised  warfare  of  a  hierarchy  against 
every  step  in  the  progress  of  mankind  towards  a 
knowledge  of  the  truth  wliich  would  make  men 
free. 

When  we  realise  that  these  three  verses  have  no 
place  in  the  Gospel,  the  story  of  Jesus  is  delivered  from 
one  of  its  worst  entanglements.  He  did  not  imdertake 
to  do  so  entirely  incongruous  a  thing  as  to  found  a 
permanent  institution  in  a  world  in  which  he  believed 
that  all  existing  institutions  were  soon  to  be  swept 
away  for  ever  and  a  new  order  of  things  established, 
under  the  immediate  supervision  of  God.  He  did  not 
found  a  Chiirch,  nor  give  any  authority  to  Peter. 
Consequently  none  of  the  churches  has  the  slightest 
shadow  of  a  foundation  for  any  of  their  claims  to  cir- 
cumscribe the  intelligence,  to  dictate  the  beliefs,  or  to 
prescribe  the  cc  iduct  of  mankind,  and  the  public  must 
be  informed  that  these  verses  are  a  forgery. 

§  XLV:  Mark  ix,  2-13 

The  account  of  the  "Transfiguration"  is  given  only 
by  Mark  and  it  would  be  interesting  to  know  why  the 
others  omitted  it.  Quite  probably  it  grew  out  of  one 
of  the  "visions,"  which  some  of  the  followers  of  Jesus 
had,  at  some  time  after  the  crucifixion. 


Jesus  on  the  Way  to  Jerusalem        189 

The  suggestion  that  the  three  disciples  were  not  to 
tell  of  it  until  after  the  resurrection  makes  this  seem  a 
reasonable  explanation.  Whether  this  be  true,  or 
not,  the  materials  for  its  construction  are  evident 
enough.  The  early  Jewish  Christians  imagined  that  law, 
prophets,  and  Gospel  were  to  live  together  in  happy- 
harmony  and  this  idea  is  expressed  in  the  saying  as- 
signed to  Peter,  "It  is  good  for  us  to  be  here," 
while  the  vanishing  of  Moses  and  Elias,  followed  by 
the  voice,  saying,  "This  is  my  beloved  Son,  hear 
him,"  represents  the  triumph  of  Pauline  ideas.  2  Cor. 
iii-iv,  6. 

The  details  for  the  story  were  abundantly  supplied 
in  the  legend  of  Moses,  Ex.  xxiv.  The  six  days,  the 
three  favoured  friends,  the  light  of  the  divine  glory 
were  all  to  be  found  in  that  ancient  tale,  while  the 
whiteness  of  the  garments,  surpassing  the  brightness 
of  the  sun  and  the  whiteness  of  the  snow,  came  from  the 
Apocalypse  of  Enoch. 

As  apologetics,  the  supposed  transfiguration  before 
three  witnesses  seemed  to  confirm  the  truth  of  Peter's 
recent  declaration  that  Jesus  was  the  Messiah  and 
therefore  to  furnish  the  strongest  evidence  in  favour  of 
that  belief,  for  the  defence  of  which  Mark  wrote  his 
Gospel.  The  statement  that  Jesus  charged  the  dis- 
ciples to  tell  no  man  what  they  had  seen,  until  he  was 
risen  from  the  dead,  shows  that  this  whole  accoimt  is 
an  afterthought,  the  outgrowth  of  imagination  and 
apologetics,  without  any  historical  foundation;  for 
we  learn  from  the  subsequent  history  that  the  disciples 
did  not  expect  any  resiurection  and  were  totally  un- 
prepared for  the  death  of  Jesus,  which  could  not  have 
been  the  case  if  he  had  impressed  these  things  upon 
them,  as  is  so  often  stated  in  the  narrative. 


190  The  Historic  Jesus 

§  XL  VI:  Mark  ix,  14-2Q;  Luke  ix,  37-42;  Matt,  xvii, 

14-21 

That  the  legend  of  Moses  supplied  the  details  for 
the  account  of  the  "Transfiguration"  is  corroborated 
by  this  narrative,  in  which  the  ancient  legend  is  still 
further  drawn  upon,  (Ex.  xxxii,  15  ff.) ;  for  a-s  Moses,  on 
coming  down  from  Sinai,  is  said  to  have  found  the 
people  lapsed  into  idolotry  and  holding  a  festival  for 
the  golden  calf  and  to  have  been  filled  with  wrath  on 
that  account,  so  Jesus,  on  coming  down  from  the  "high 
mountain,"  is  said  to  have  found  the  disciples  so  weak 
in  faith  that  they  could  not  heal  an  epileptic  and 
to  have  been  much  grieved  thereby.  While  Jesus 
undoubtedly  healed  epileptics,  this  particular  case 
seems  to  have  been  imagined  in  order  to  carry  out  the 
paralleHsm  with  the  Mosaic  legend,  and  it  is  open  to 
suspicion  because  he  is  made  to  say,  in  response  to  the 
question  of  the  disciples  as  to  why  they  could  not  heal 
the  boy:  "This  kind  cometh  forth  by  nothing  but  by 
prayer  and  fasting."  This  was  contrary  to  the  teach- 
ing of  Jesus  concerning  fasting,  for  he  had  never  taught 
that  it  was  a  means  for  acquiring  spiritual  power,  nor 
that  it  constituted  a  claim  upon  God,  as  the  Pharisees 
imagined,  but  Ox  ly  that  it  was  the  natural  expression 
of  grief.  With  him  power  was  always  the  result  of 
faith,  and  prayer  was  a  means  for  developing  faith 
by  bringing  one  into  a  larger  consciousness  of  the 
infinite  life,  but  Mark  is  inconsistent  in  making  Jesus 
suggest  fasting  as  a  source  of  power,  for  he  had  already 
made  him  say  to  the  boy's  father:  "If  thou  canst 
believe,  all  things  are  possible  to  him  that  believeth. " 
Luke  omits  this  question  and  answer  altogether,  but 
Matthew  makes  the  incongruity   most  evident.     He 


Jesus  on  the  Way  to  Jerusalem        191 

makes  Jesus  say,  "If  ye  have  faith  as  a  grain  of  mus- 
tard seed,  ye  shall  say  unto  this  mountain,  Remove 
hence  to  yonder  place ;  and  it  will  remove ;  and  nothing 
will  be  impossible  unto  you. "  Jesus  undoubtedly 
said  this  on  some  occasion.  He  was  speaking  from  his 
own  experience  and  his  absolute  conviction  that  the 
power  which  was  working  in  and  through  him  was  the 
power  of  God.  There  seemed  to  him  to  be  no  limit 
to  what  it  would  accomplish  and  he  was  siu-e  that  any 
one  might  acquire  an  equal  power,  if  he  would  develop 
in  his  own  soul  a  consciousness  of  God  like  his  own. 
It  is  perfectly  evident  that,  having  assigned  an  un- 
limited power  to  faith,  Jesus  did  not  add  that  fasting 
was  also  necessary. 

This  "correction"  of  the  teaching  of  Jesus  on  the 
part  of  the  early  Christians  shows  their  inability  to 
recognise  what  he  meant  by  faith. 

§  XL  VII:  Mark  ix,  30-32;  Luke  ix,  43-45;  Matt,  xvii,  22 

Jesus  had  determined  upon  the  great  undertaking  of 
going  to  Jerusalem  and  the  disciples  had  agreed  to  go 
with  him.  A  long  and  dreary  journey  on  foot  of  about 
a  hundred  miles  lay  before  them,  beset  with  dangers, 
if  they  ventiu-ed  into  the  territory  of  Herod,  while 
still  greater  perils  awaited  them  in  Jerusalem.  In 
preparation  for  the  journey  it  was  necessary  to  return 
once  more  to  Galilee,  yet  the  risk  which  they  incurred 
there  compelled  them  to  attract  as  little  attention  as 
possible  and  to  hasten  their  departure. 

In  such  quiet  retreats  as  they  found,  Jesus  undoubt- 
edly tried  to  build  up  the  courage  of  the  disciples  and 
to  enlarge  their  faith  in  the  final  success  of  his  mission 
He  did  not  disguise  from  himself  nor  from  them  the 


192  The  Historic  Jesus 

possibility  that  he  might  lose  his  life  and  that  some  of 
them  might  lose  their  Hves,  but  would  have  them  strong 
in  the  belief  that  this  would  not  prevent  nor  delay  the 
coming  of  the  Kingdom  of  God.  He  did  not,  however, 
tell  them  that  he  would  certainly  die,  for  this  he  did 
not  expect,  nor  that  he  was  going  to  Jerusalem  for 
the  purpose  of  dying,  for  he  did  not  so  interpret  his 
mission.  Therefore,  all  statements  to  the  effect  that 
he  predicted  his  death  and  explained  that  it  was  in 
fulfilment  of  prophecy,  or  in  obedience  to  God,  or  part 
of  a  divine  plan,  are  later  misinterpretations  put  back 
into  the  Gospel  narrative  and  have  not  the  slightest 
warrant  in  history.  The  entire  later  theory,  that 
Jesus  had  been  a  suffering  Messiah  in  order  that  he 
might  become  a  heavenly  Messiah,  grew  out  of  the 
visions  of  Jesus  in  glory  and  afforded  the  only  means 
by  which  the  early  Jewish  Christians  could  expect  to 
convert  other  Jews  to  their  belief  that  he  was  the 
Messiah.  It  would  have  added  immeasurably  to  his 
anxiety  and  grief,  had  he  foreseen  the  new  Pharisaism 
which  would  hide  away  the  reality  of  his  faith  and 
teaching. 

§  XL  VIII:  Mark  ix,  33-50;  Luke  ix,  46-48;  Matt,  xviii, 

i-ii 

The  disciples  had  become  so  much  interested  in  the 
prospect  of  the  immediate  coming  of  the  Kingdom  of 
God  that  they  had  fallen  to  speculating  as  to  what  it 
would  yield  for  them  and  had  had  some  argument  as  to 
which  of  them  would  be  the  greatest,  which  shows  not 
only  that  their  anticipations  were  entirely  materialistic, 
but  also  that  the  appointment  of  Peter  to  the  highest 
place,  as  stated  in  Matthew's  Gospel,  is  entirely  without 
foundation. 


Jesus  on  the  Way  to  Jerusalem        193 

Jesus,  learning  of  the  controversy,  repeated  the 
instruction,  which  he  had  often  given  them,  that  there 
was  nothing  arbitrary  about  the  results  of  Hfe,  but  that 
a  man's  value  was  in  proportion  to  his  service  to  those 
who  needed  it.  Consequently,  he  was  greatest  who 
served  his  fellow-men  best.  Calling  a  child  to  him,  he 
made  of  him  an  illustration  of  what  he  meant  by  service. 
The  child  was  helpless  and  dependent  and  needed  loving 
care  and  protection  and,  therefore,  represented  the 
great  human  multitude  in  need  of  help,  sympathy, 
protection,  guidance.  He  who  helped  best  him  who 
needed  most  would  be  the  greatest  in  the  Kingdom  of 
God.  Luke  gives  substantially  the  same  account  of 
the  object  of  Jesus  in  using  the  child  as  an  illustration, 
but  nearly  a  generation  later  Matthew  mistook  the 
purpose  of  Jesus  altogether.  With  him  the  child  is  no 
longer  an  illustration,  but  has  become  a  model,  with 
humility  as  the  chief  virtue  to  be  copied.  Matthew 
thought  that  Jesus  was  establishing  the  terms  of  ad- 
mission to  the  Kingdom  of  God,  which  by  his  time  had 
become  identified  with  "the  Chiu-ch."  One  must 
acquire  humility,  which  implied  confidence,  teach- 
ableness, plasticity,  and  "be  converted,"  which  implied 
the  acceptance  of  dogmatic  beliefs,  as  established  by 
ecclesiastical  authority.  The  spirit  of  ecclesiasticism 
had  entirely  obscured  the  teaching  of  Jesus,  but  is  so 
charmingly  hidden  away  behind  pious  phraseology 
as  to  have  generally  escaped  notice.  Matthew  returns 
later  to  the  interpretation  as  given  by  Mark  because  he 
finds  that  Mark  has  changed  from  the  child  used  as  an 
illustration  to  an  instruction  of  Jesus  concerning  the 
attitude  toward  the  little  ones,  that  is  the  common 
people,  who  believe  in  him.  This  change  in  Mark's 
Gospel  was  brought  about  by  a  passage  which  broke 


194  The  Historic  Jesus 

the  connection  and  which  is  very  interesting,  because 
it  gives  us  a  glimpse  into  some  of  the  results  of  the  work 
of  Jesus  in  Galilee  of  which  there  is  no  record.  He  had 
made  so  great  an  impression  that  the  disciples  had 
discovered  a  man  who  was  healing  in  the  name  of 
Jesus.  On  the  other  hand,  some  of  the  people,  misled 
by  the  Pharisees,  had  refused  even  to  give  a  drink  of 
water  to  the  disciples  of  Jesus.  This,  therefore,  seemed 
a  fitting  connection  to  bring  in  an  instruction,  which 
Jesus  undoubtedly  gave  the  disciples  about  this  time. 
Woe  unto  the  men  who  misled  the  little  people  who 
believed  in  him,  as  the  Pharisees  were  doing.  It  would 
be  better  for  such  people  if  they  were  drowned  in  the 
Lake  of  Galilee.  The  disciples  needed  to  be  on  their 
guard  against  the  dangers,  weaknesses,  and  temptations 
which  came  to  them  from  their  Pharisaic  inheritance. 
Wrong  habits,  methods,  ambitions,  notions,  beliefs  must 
be  torn  out  from  their  hves  as  completely  as  if  their 
bodies  had  been  disfigured  by  the  loss  of  a  hand,  a  foot, 
or  an  eye.  They  were  preparing  to  enter  into  life,  to 
become  citizens  in  the  Kingdom  of  God,  and  it  would  be 
better  to  enter  with  the  loss  of  all  that  might  cause  them 
to  offend  than  to  lose  life  itself  in  the  fire  which  would 
eradicate  all  evil  before  the  Kingdom  was  established 
in  power.  As  the  garbage  of  Jerusalem  was  burned  in 
the  Valley  of  Hinnom,  where  the  fire  never  went  out 
and  putrefaction  was  always  present,  so  it  would  happen 
to  the  refuse  of  humanity  when  the  coming  judgment 
had  separated  it  from  the  pure  wheat  of  the  Kingdom. 
Jesus  had  not  the  mediaeval  notion  of  a  perpetual 
hell-fire  which  burned  without  consuming,  but  antici- 
pated such  a  complete  destruction  of  wickedness  that 
nothing  but  absolute  goodness  would  be  left  for  the 
Ilingdom  of  God. 


Jesus  on  the  Way  to  Jerusalem        195 

If  the  disciples  would  take  the  preparation  for  the 
Kingdom  so  seriously  as  to  cast  out  everything  that 
was  wrong  from  their  lives  in  habit  or  belief  they  would 
not  be  among  those  who  misled  the  little  ones  who 
believed  in  him. 

Matthew  closes  this  account  by  making  Jesus  give 
as  a  reason  why  they  should  not  mislead  "the  Httle 
ones"  that  "in  heaven  their  angels  do  always  behold 
the  face  of  my  Father,  which  is  in  heaven." 

Jesus  quite  probably  held  the  belief  in  guardian 
angels,  which  the  Jews  had  acqmred  from  long  contact 
with  the  Persians,  but  these  words  reflect  rather  the 
confused  beliefs  of  Jewish  Christians  than  any  actual 
words  of  his;  for  one  would  think  that  guardian  angels 
would  be  able  to  protect  their  wards  against  "offences" 
and  would  hardly  speak  of  their  wards  as  "lost. " 


LUKES  ACCOUNT  OF  THE  JOURNEY  TO  JERUSALEM — • 
LUKE  ix,  51-XViii,  14 

Luke  ix,  51-55 

It  is  necessary  at  this  point  to  break  the  study 
of  Mark's  Gospel  and  to  examine  the  collection  of 
narratives  which  Luke  gathered  from  many  sources 
and  arranged  as  details  of  the  journey  to  Jerusalem. 
While  most  if  not  all  of  the  narratives  undoubtedly 
represent  actual  events  in  the  life  of  Jesus,  or  genuine 
sayings  of  his,  the  setting  which  Luke  provided  for 
them  is  due  to  his  literary  genius  and  cannot  be  con- 
sidered historical.  In  fact,  the  journey  to  Jerusalem, 
as  he  describes  it,  is  altogether  improbable  at  this  time, 
but  it  may  be  that  there  was  a  journey  through  Samaria 
in  some  earlier  year,  some  traditions  of  which  Luke 
confused  with  this  account.  Two  routes  were  possible : 
either  through  Peraea  by  way  of  Jericho,  or  through 
Samaria  by  w£v  of  Shechem.  Mark  gives  the  first 
route  and  Luke  the  second,  which,  however,  necessitates 
a  long  detoiu*  from  Shechem,  in  order  to  connect  with 
Mark's  narrative  at  Jericho. 

The  route  given  by  Mark  would  be  much  the  safer 
of  the  two,  since  it  would  avoid  both  Galilee  and 
Samaria.  In  Galilee  there  was  constant  danger  from 
Herod  Antipas  and,  although  most  of  the  Galilean 
pilgrims  to  the  Passover  did  go  through  Samaria,  it  was 
not  without  frequent  and  sometimes  bloody  encounters 

196 


Jesus  on  the  Way  to  Jerusalem        197 

with  the  Samaritans,  who,  being  excluded  as  pagans 
from  all  but  the  outer  court  of  the  temple,  hated  the 
Jews  accordingly. 

As  Jesus  and  the  disciples  were  already  in  Galilee, 
it  would  be  much  easier  to  take  the  route  through 
Samaria  than  to  cross  the  lake  again  and  begin  the 
journey  from  the  other  side.  It  is  possible  that  a 
solution  of  the  discrepancy  may  be  found  in  a  statement 
in  Luke's  Gospel  of  hostility  which  Jesus  encountered  in 
Samaria,  and  that  on  that  account  he  and  the  disciples, 
having  begun  their  jotimey  by  that  route,  turned  back 
and  took  the  other  one,  or,  as  already  stated,  there  may 
have  been  a  journey  through  Samaria  at  another 
time. 

Luke,  in  introducing  the  new  material  into  the 
narrative,  prefaces  it  with  a  statement,  ix,  51,  which 
shows  an  unfortimate  theological  bias.  "And  it  came 
to  pass,  when  the  days  were  well-nigh  come  that  he 
should  be  received  up,  he  steadfastly  set  his  face  to  go 
to  Jerusalem." 

If  this  be  a  true  interpretation,  the  only  virtue  which 
Jesus  possessed  was  his  willingness  to  be  the  victim 
of  a  divine  plan  which,  being  a  divine  plan,  would  be 
carried  out  whether  he  were  willing  or  not ;  but  it  robs 
him  of  all  individuality,  originality,  noble  ideality, 
grand  devotion,  and  manly  courage,  and  it  has  been  a 
colossal  misfortune  for  the  Christian  world  that  the 
real  Jesus  has  been  so  long  hidden  away  behind  the 
distorted  picture  of  dogmatic  delusion. 

It  is  time  that  men,  brushing  away  the  cobwebs  of 
old  speculations,  should  realise  that  this  world  is  not 
the  puppet  of  divine  decrees,  nor  the  football  of  in- 
exorable fate,  but  the  divine  arena  on  which  the  con- 
scious sons  of  God,  in  the  free  exercise  of  heart  and  head, 


198  The  Historic  Jesus 

leam  to  interpret  the  noblest  duties  of  life  as  the  glad 
doing  of  their  Father's  will. 

Then  the  faith,  hope,  and  love,  the  devotion  and 
courage  of  Jesus  will  shine  as  the  brightest  spots  upon 
the  canvas  of  human  history,  and  he  will  become  the 
leader  of  a  greater  host  than  in  all  the  ages  of  Christian 
history  devoted  to  the  supreme  service  of  humanity, 
which  is  the  actual  doing  of  the  will  of  God. 

Luke  ix,  57-62;  Matt,  viii,  iQ-22 

There  were  certainly  some  who  went  from  Galilee 
with  Jesus  besides  the  disciples,  men  who  had  been 
willing  to  renounce  everything  and  were  willing  to 
risk  everything.  Others  probably  joined  them  on  the 
way,  while  some,  who  would  have  done  so,  shrank  from 
the  dangers.  Luke  discovered  traditions  of  three  cases 
and  how  Jesus  dealt  with  them  (ix,  57  ff.). 

To  one  who  said  that  he  would  go  with  him  whither- 
soever he  went,  Jesus  replied,  "Foxes  have  holes  and 
the  birds  of  heaven  have  nests,  but  the  Son  of  Man 
hath  not  where  to  lay  his  head."  This  was  very 
different  from  his  strengthening  of  the  disciples'  faith 
by  telling  them  that  the  very  hairs  of  their  head  were 
numbered  and  tl  at  they  were  of  more  value  than  many 
sparrows.  The  latter  was  to  encourage  men  who  were 
already  committed  to  his  cause,  while  what  he  said  to 
the  new  applicant  was  intended  as  a  warning.  He 
would  take  no  followers  without  a  full  understanding 
on  their  part  as  to  what  they  might  expect.  Another 
man  would  join  in  the  attack  upon  Jerusalem  if  he 
might  first  attend  his  father's  funeral,  but  Jesus  said, 
"Let  the  dead  bury  their  dead;  but  go  thou  and  publish 
abroad  the  Kingdom  of  God. " 


Jesus  on  the  Way  to  Jerusalem       199 

There  were  enough,  according  to  the  thought  of 
Jesus,  who  did  not  believe  his  message  to  attend  to  the 
ordinary  duties  of  life,  but  a  man  whose  soul  was  on 
fire  with  the  prospect  of  the  near  coming  of  the  King- 
dom of  God  had  no  time  to  spare,  even  to  bury  his 
father.  When  the  Kingdom  comes  and  the  resurrection 
takes  place  he  will  see  his  father  again,  if  he  is  worthy 
to  become  a  citizen,  meanwhile  there  are  thousands  who 
may  be  lost,  thousands  who  might  be  saved,  if  some 
one  would  only  go  and  tell  them  that  the  Kingdom  was 
certainly  coming. 

A  man  who  believed  the  message,  so  Jesus  felt, 
could  not  help  doing  this  and  could  not  be  kept  from 
it  even  by  the  closest  ties  of  filial  love  and  duty. 

The  same  was  true  of  the  man  who  wanted  first  to  go 
and  bid  farewell  to  the  friends  at  home.  It  did  not 
seem  to  Jesus  that  he  took  the  matter  seriously  enough. 
If  he  had  really  once  put  his  hand  to  the  plough  and  was 
ploughing  a  furrow  to  prepare  for  the  coming  of  the 
Kingdom  of  God,  he  could  not  possibly  think  of  drop- 
ping it  and  taking  a  leave  of  absence  to  go  and  bid  good- 
by  to  his  friends.  The  Kingdom  was  everything  and 
time  was  short  and  one  was  not  fit  for  it  if  he  let  any- 
thing interfere  with  his  complete  devotion  to  it. 

These  three  incidents  show  the  intensity  of  the  con- 
victions and  feelings  of  Jesus  and  how  very  real  the 
immediate  coming  of  the  Kingdom  was  to  him. 

It  ought  to  be  evident  to  every  one  that  what  he  said 
to  these  men,  who  undoubtedly  represent  many  appli- 
cants, as  well  as  many  other  things  which  he  is  reported 
as  saying  on  the  way  to  Jerusalem,  were  applicable 
only  to  that  great  undertaking  and  its  serious  exigencies 
and  that  they  cannot  be  construed  into  permanent 
and  universal  rules  for  life.     The  failure  to  recognise 


200  The  Historic  Jesus 

so  simple  an  historical  fact  has  led  to  much  unfortunate 
blundering. 

Luke  X,  I-I2 

Luke  had  already  given  the  account  of  the  sending 
out  of  the  twelve  on  a  preaching  tour  in  Galilee,  as  he 
found  it  in  Mark's  Gospel.  Here  he  introduces  an 
account  of  the  sending  out  of  a  large  company,  as  many 
as  seventy,  to  preach,  ostensibly  in  Samaria,  although, 
according  to  the  tradition  of  the  earlier  instruction, 
given  in  Matthew's  Gospel,  and  which  is  undoubtedly 
authentic,  Jesus  had  said  to  the  disciples,  "Go  not 
into  any  way  of  the  Gentiles,  and  enter  not  into  any 
city  of  the  Samaritans,  but  go  rather  to  the  lost  sheep 
of  the  house  of  Israel. "  There  is  no  apparent  reason 
why  he  should  have  so  entirely  changed  his  attitude, 
his  purpose,  and  his  interpretation  of  his  work  as  is  here 
implied,  nor,  while  under  the  intense  pressure  which 
urged  him  forward  to  Jerusalem,  could  he  have  brought 
himself  to  rest  quietly  by  the  way,  awaiting  the  results 
of  a  great  mission  among  the  cities  of  Samaria. 

It  is  evident  that  Luke  has  mistaken  the  work  of 
later  Jewish  Christians  for  an  actual  event  during  the 
time  of  Jesus,  ard  that  his  mistake  afforded  the  conven- 
ient opportunity  for  illustrating  the  Pauline  idea  that 
the  teaching  of  Jesus  constituted  a  new  religion  for  the 
world  and  that  Jesus  himself  had  established  a  world- 
wide mission.  This  is  implied  not  only  by  the  fact 
that  these  missionaries  were  supposed  to  be  in  Samaria 
and  that  the  Samaritans  counted  as  pagans  with  the 
Jews,  but  also  in  the  number  seventy,  which  passed 
among  the  Jews  as  representing  all  the  nations  of  the 
earth.     They  had  a  legend,  which  related  that  the  law 


Jesus  on  the  Way  to  Jerusalem       201 

was  proclaimed  from  Mt.  Sinai  in  seventy  languages, 
and  another  which  told  that  the  version  of  their  Script- 
ures into  Greek  was  made  by  seventy  men  working 
independently  of  each  other  and  yet  so  entirely  imder 
divine  control  that  their  translations  agreed  to  a  word. 

The  suggestion  that  "the  labourer  is  worthy  of  his 
hire"  is  Pauline,  (i  Cor.  ix,  14),  as  is  also  the  instruc- 
tion, "eat  such  things  as  are  set  before  you."  This 
refers  to  the  troublesome  question  about  meat  offered 
to  idols,  which  could  occur  only  amid  the  conditions 
of  life  among  the  pagans.  The  supposed  saying  of 
Jesus  that  the  missionaries  whom  he  was  sending  out 
were  going  forth  as  sheep  among  wolves  was  accurately 
expressive  of  later  circumstances,  when  the  preachers  of 
the  new  religion  did  suffer  persecution,  but  could  not 
apply  to  the  original  twelve  whom  Jesus  sent  out  in  joy 
and  hope  to  preach  the  Gospel,  heal  the  sick,  and  cast 
out  devils  in  Galilee. 

It  is  evident,  therefore,  that  the  supposed  sending  of 
the  seventy  is  partly  an  anachronism  and  partly  an 
allegory  on  the  part  of  Luke  and  is  to  be  omitted  as 
unhistorical  from  an  attempt  to  discover  the  true  story 
of  Jesus.  Matthew  found  the  two  accounts  of  the 
sending  of  the  twelve  and  the  sending  of  the  seventy 
and  confused  them  in  a  single  narrative  of  the  sending 
of  the  twelve  (Mt.  ix,  35-x,  25). 

Luke  X,  13-24;  Matt,  xi,  20-27 

It  is  rather  remarkable  that  the  earlier  Gospel  con- 
tained no  account  of  the  return  of  the  twelve  from  their 
mission  and  of  the  results  which  they  had  accomplished, 
and  it  is  quite  possible  that  Luke,  finding  such  a  tradi- 
tion, recorded  it  in  his  account  of  the  return  of  the 


202  The  Historic  Jesus 

supposed  seventy.  They  are  said  to  have  returned 
with  joy  that  the  devils  were  subject  to  them  in 
the  name  of  Jesus.  The  original  twelve  imdoubtedly 
returned  with  joy,  but,  as  the  details  of  their  report 
had  been  lost,  most  of  such  details  as  are  given  must  be 
due  to  the  inventive  genius  of  Luke.  Jesus  had  possibly 
developed  in  them  the  power  to  heal  nervous  diseases, 
but  certainly  in  no  other  way  than  that  in  which  he 
healed  them,  that  is,  by  the  power  of  faith;  but  a  later 
generation,  lacking  the  spiritual  power,  had  imagined 
them  healing  diseases  by  using  the  name  of  Jesus  to 
conjure  with,  which  virtually  reduced  the  healings  to  a 
magical  basis  and  is  altogether  impossible.  Jesus 
undoubtedly  recognised  the  results  of  their  work,  as 
he  did  those  of  his  own,  as  harbingers  of  the  coming 
of  the  Kingdom  of  God  and  sure  evidences  of  the  speedy 
dethronement  of  Satan.  He  would  naturally  express 
his  beHef  in  the  inevitable  victory  of  God,  and,  in  the 
way  familiar  to  the  people  of  Palestine,  as  the  victory 
of  God  over  the  Devil. 

The  idea  of  a  divine  struggle  against  a  vast  power  of 
evil,  known  as  "the  dragon,"  or  leviathan,  or,  in  later 
times,  as  Satan,  had  been  inherited  from  very  ancient 
Semitic  mythology  and  found  expression  in  a  popular 
Jewish  Apocalypse,  in  the  time  of  Jesus,  in  the  form 
in  which  it  is  given  in  the  Book  of  Revelation  (xii,  7-9.), 
Jesus  would  naturally  express  his  beHef  in  the  coming 
victory  in  the  popular  language  of  the  day,  declaring 
that  he  already  foresaw  the  time  when  Satan  would  be 
cast  down  from  his  high  estate,  with  the  certainty 
of  eventually  losing  his  power  over  this  world.  Those 
who  to-day  believe  also  in  the  inevitableness  of  the 
victory  of  good  over  evil  do  not  find  it  necessary  to 
express  that  belief  in  the  forms  of  ancient  mythology. 


Jesus  on  the  Way  to  Jerusalem        203 

The  faith  of  Jesus  is  sublime  and  eternal,  but  the  forms 
in  which  it  had  to  express  itself  nearly  two  thousand 
years  ago  were  temporary  and  transient. 

He  is  said  to  have  told  them  that  their  real  cause  for 
joy  was  not  to  be  found  in  their  power  over  diseases, 
but  in  the  fact  that  their  names  were  written  in  heaven, 
in  other  words,  that  they  had  become  so  far  emancipated 
from  the  superficial  and  mechanical  life  of  the  multi- 
tude and  had  made  such  growth  in  the  moral  and  spirit- 
ual life  that  they  had  virtually  already  passed  the 
judgment  and  had  proved  their  worthiness  for  citizen- 
ship in  the  Kingdom  of  God. 

Jesus  undoubtedly  thanked  God  for  the  slightest 
evidence  which  these  men  gave  of  any  reality  of  faith 
and  any  insight  into  spiritual  things.  Liike  assigns 
to  him,  when  the  disciples  return  from  their  missionary 
work,  a  magnificent  hymn  of  victory: 

I  thank  thee,  Father, 
Lord  of  heaven  and  earth, 

That  thou  hast  hidden  from  the  prudent  and  the  wise, 
And  hast  revealed  to  babes 
Thy  truth. 

Yea,  Father, 

For  so  it  pleased  thee. 

All  things  are  given 
Of  my  Father  unto  me, 
And  no  one  but  the  Father  knows  the  Son 
And  none  the  Father,  but  the  Son, 
And  he  to  whom  the  Son 
Reveals  him. 

It  is  a  beautiful  hymn,  but  it  is  impossible  to  think  for 
a  moment  that  the  last  six  lines  can  have  come  from 


204  The  Historic  Jesus 

Jesus,  who  is  nowhere  else  in  the  Synoptic  Gospels 
represented  as  breaking  forth  into  the  language  of  the 
dogmatic  theology  of  a  later  generation.  The  ideas 
and  the  language  are  Pauline,  so  much  so  that  in  the 
first  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians,  (i,  19-31),  there  may 
be  found  ten  words  and  expressions  suggestive  of  the 
ideas  of  this  passage,  while  the  supremacy  of  Jesus, 
as  the  Messiah,  is  set  forth  in  i  Cor.  xv,  27.  Jesus 
always  proclaimed  the  Kingdom  of  God  and  portrayed 
the  character  which  would  entitle  one  to  citizenship. 
He  had  no  speculative  dogmas,  dealt  in  no  mysteries, 
and  did  not  believe  that  any  one  was  prevented  by 
divine  decree  from  believing  his  message. 

Jesus  no  doubt  on  this,  or  some  similar  occasion, 
impressed  upon  the  disciples  an  additional  cause  for 
rejoicing.  Not  only  were  they  sure  of  admission  to  the 
Kingdom,  but  they  were  living  at  the  very  epoch  of  its 
coming.  Many  prophets  and  kings  had  longed  to  see 
the  things  which  they  saw  and  had  not  seen  them,  but 
they  could  see  the  signs  of  its  coming  multiplying  so 
fast  that  they  might  expect  its  advent  in  the  clouds  at 
any  time. 

Luke  X,  25-37 

In  relating  the  story  of  the  scribe,  who  asked  what 
he  should  do  to  inherit  eternal  life,  which  he  found  in 
the  earlier  Gospel,  Luke  transposed  the  parts,  in  order 
to  make  the  scribe,  whom  he  calls  a  lawyer,  ask  the 
question, "Who  is  my  neighbour?"  and  this  gave  him 
an  opportimity  for  telling  the  story  of  the  Good  Samari- 
tan, which  he  alone  relates.  The  story  was  undoubt- 
edly told  in  Jerusalem  and  not  on  the  way  thither,  and 
its  teaching  was  extraordinary  for  the  people  of  that 


Jesus  on  the  Way  to  Jerusalem        205 

city  to  hear,  since  it  illustrated  unmistakably  the  sad 
effect  of  religious  bigotry  in  stifling  the  natural  sym- 
pathy of  the  human  heart.  A  man  had  fallen  among 
thieves,  who  had  robbed  and  wounded  him  and  left 
him  half  dead.  A  priest  and  a  Levite  saw  him  and 
passed  by  on  the  other  side.  The  man  might  not  be  a 
Jew  and  so  would  be  nothing  to  them.  If  a  Jew,  he 
probably  did  not  keep  the  law  and  they  would  con- 
taminate their  sanctity  by  coming  near  him.  It  was 
certainly  safer  to  keep  on  the  other  side.  But  there 
came  a  Samaritan  that  way,  a  man  excluded  from  the 
worship  of  God  in  Jerusalem.  He  saw  a  man  in 
distress  and  was  sorry  for  him  and,  not  stopping  to  ask 
about  his  race,  religion,  or  orthodoxy,  he  cared  for  him, 
devoting  thought,  time,  and  money  to  help  him.  Such 
was  the  answer  of  Jesus  to  the  question,  "Who  is  my 
neighbotu?"  Every  one  who  needs  your  help,  regard- 
less of  everything  but  that  one  fact,  is  your  neighbor. 
It  was  but  an  illustration  of  his  constant  teaching  that 
the  service  of  humanity  was  the  greatest  object  in  human 
life,  because  it  was  a  real  doing  of  the  will  of  God  and 
therefore  a  foretaste  of  life  in  the  Kingdom  of  God  soon 
to  be  realised.  The  story  shows  the  clear  intuitions  of 
Jesus  as  to  the  normal  growth  of  humanity  when 
once  set  free  from  its  prejudices.  It  was  religious 
prejudice  which  made  the  priest  and  Levite  inhuman, 
while  the  saying  of  Jesus,  "Go  and  do  thou  likewise," 
has  been  heard  in  the  human  heart  for  nearly  nineteen 
centuries  and,  despite  all  obstacles,  has  been  doing  a 
patient,  persistent  work  in  making  his  ideal  an  ever 
grander  reality  in  the  life  of  the  nations. 

As  regards  the  English  version,  it  is  a  misfortune 
that  the  translators  used  the  words  "two  pence." 
The  amount  given  in  the  story  is  equal  to  about  thirty- 


2o6  The  Historic  Jesus 

four  cents,  although  this  is  quite  irrelevant.  It  would 
have  been  much  better  translated,  "And  on  the  morrow 
he  took  out  some  money  and  gave  it  to  the  host.  * 

Luke  X,  38-42 

In  Luke's  account  of  "a  certain  village"  where  Jesus 
and  his  company  were  entertained  by  two  sisters,  there 
is  a  touch  of  human  nature  which  is  quite  realistic.  Tra- 
dition afterwards  identified  the  village  with  Bethany, 
about  three  miles  from  Jerusalem,  to  which  Jesus 
retired  several  nights  during  the  last  week.  The 
company,  including  the  women  who  came  from  Galilee 
and  others  who  joined  on  the  way,  numbered  at  least 
twenty.  To  find  accommodation  in  the  small  houses 
of  a  Judaean  village  and  to  provide  food  for  so  many  was 
no  small  task.  The  burden  fell  upon  Martha,  while 
Mary  devoted  herself  to  listening  to  Jesus.  Martha 
became  tired  and  finally  irritated  at  having  to  do  all 
the  work  and  appealed  to  Jesus  to  make  Mary  help  her, 
but  Jesus  assured  her  that  she  was  taking  too  much 
trouble.  A  Uttle  would  suffice,  anything  would  do. 
Mary  was  wise  to  listen  to  the  good  news  of  the  King- 
dom and  he  could  not  deny  her  the  joy.  It  is  another 
illustration  of  how  his  absorption  in  his  work  and  his 
enthusiasm  over  the  prospects  made  him  often  oblivious 
of  physical  needs  and  the  necessity  of  providing  for 
them. 

Luke  xi,  i-ij 

Luke  relates  that  after  Jesus  had  been  praying,  on 
one  occasion,  one  of  the  disciples  said  to  him — "Lord, 
teach  us  to  pray,  as  John  taught  his  disciples. "     Jesus 


Jesus  on  the  Way  to  Jerusalem        207 

lived,  as  no  one  ever  did  before  or  since,  in  the  clear  and 
constant  consciousness  of  God  and  often  entered  into 
intimate  intercourse  with  him,  as  the  source  of  his  faith, 
hope,  and  courage.  One  could  not  imagine  him  re- 
peating fixed  formulas  of  prayer. 

According  to  the  earliest  Gospel,  his  teaching  on  the 
subject  was  (Mark  xi,  24,  25) :  "All  things  whatsoever 
ye  pray  and  ask  for,  believe  that  ye  have  received 
them  and  ye  will  have  them.  And,  whensoever  ye 
stand  praying,  forgive,  if  ye  have  aught  against  any 
one;  that  your  Father  also,  which  is  in  heaven,  may 
forgive  you  your  trespasses." 

A  generation  later  there  was  a  tradition  that  Jesus 
had  given  the  disciples  a  fixed  prayer.  It  is  possible 
that  he  did.  At  least  its  petitions  are  in  accordance 
with  his  teaching.  But  it  is  also  possible,  from  the 
mention  of  John  the  Baptist,  that  the  formula  grew 
out  of  the  desire  of  the  Christians  to  have  a  Hke  equip- 
ment with  the  disciples  of  the  latter.  We  cannot  tell, 
but  the  enlargement  in  Matthew's  Gospel  shows  that 
there  was  no  certain  tradition  on  the  subject,  while  so 
important  a  fact  could  hardly  have  escaped  the  know- 
ledge of  Mark. 

According  to  Luke  the  prayer  was  very  short : 

Father, 

Hallowed  be  thy  name. 
Thy  Kingdom  come. 

Give  us  needful  bread  daily. 
And  forgive  us  our  sins; 

(For  we  also  forgive  every  one,  who  is  indebted  to  us). 
And  lead  us  not  into  temptation. 

Matthew  (vi,  9)  enlarged  it  to: 


2o8  The  Historic  Jesus 

Our  Father,  who  art  in  heaven, 

Hallowed  be  thy  name. 
Thy  Kingdom  come. 

Thy  will  be  done,  as  in  heaven,  so  on  earth. 
Give  us  needful  bread  to-day. 

And  forgive  us  our  debts,  as  we  forgive  our  debtors. 
And  lead  us  not  into  temptation, 

But  deliver  us  from  evil. 

The  doxology,  as  given  in  Matthew's  Gospel,  was 
supplied  from  the  later  liturgical  usage  of  the  Church. 
In  comparing  the  two  versions  of  the  prayer,  the 
beginning  in  Luke's  version  is  the  more  probable. 
"Father"  was  the  natural  expression  of  Jesus  in  appeal- 
ing to  God,  since  he  was  always  conscious  of  the  presence 
of  God;  whereas  "Our  Father,  who  art  in  heaven" 
suggests  rather  the  popular  Jewish  idea  of  a  distant 
God,  removed  from  the  world. 

Matthew's  version  enlarges  the  prayer  by  repeating 
two  of  the  petitions  in  other  words.  "Thy  will  be 
done,  on  earth,  as  it  is  in  heaven"  means  the  same  as 
"Thy  Kingdom  come,"  and  "Deliver  us  from  evil" 
means  the  same  as  "Lead  us  not  into  temptation." 
Matthew  was  infatuated  with  the  number  seven  and 
imagined  that  all  things  in  the  world  fell  naturally 
into  groups  of  seven,  whether  it  were  genealogy,  para- 
bles, or  prayers.  He  wrote  his  Gospel  on  this  theory, 
and  no  doubt  added  the  two  petitions  to  the  prayer 
to  make  it  conform  to  his  theory.  As  regards  the 
prayer  itself,  the  first  two  petitions  were  familiar  to  all 
Jews  from  the  synagogue  service,  while  the  prayer, 
"Thy  Kingdom  come,"  would  mean  more  among  the 
disciples  of  Jesus  than  to  other  Jews  from  the  intensity 
of  their  conviction  that  the  "coming "  was  close  at  hand. 

The   word    translated    "needful"    in   the   petition, 


Jesus  on  the  Way  to  Jerusalem       209 

"Give  us  needful  bread  daily,"  or,  as  Matthew  says, 
"Give  us  needful  bread  to-day,"  will  never  be  satis- 
factorily translated,  because  no  one  knows  the  meaning 
of  the  word.  Jerome  is  authority  for  the  statement 
that  the  Gospel  of  the  Hebrews  contained  the  word 
"to-morrow,"  making  the  petition  read,  "Give  us 
to-day  to-morrow's  bread,"  and  yet  the  wisest  guess  so 
far  made  suggests  "needful,"  "necessary,"  or  "suffi- 
cient," as  a  reasonable  translation. 

The  wonderfulness  of  the  prayer  as  a  whole  is  that 
in  the  fewest  possible  words  it  covers  the  whole  ground 
of  prayer.  On  the  basis  of  the  general  petition  for  the 
world,  that  God  may  be  known,  worshipped,  and  served 
and  his  personal  reign  be  established,  rests  the  recogni- 
tion of  oiir  personal  dependence  and  our  prayer  for  the 
continued  sustenance  of  life.  Then,  the  physical 
foundation  of  life  being  provided  for,  there  follows  the 
prayer  for  the  moral  superstructure,  that  we  may  be  for- 
given the  evil  of  the  past  and  strengthened  by  the  divine 
life  against  evil  in  the  future.  The  reason,  too,  is  ex- 
pressed why  we  may  hope  to  be  forgiven.  It  is  because 
we  have  forgiven  those  who  have  done  evil  to  us.  This  is 
the  certain  and  positive  teaching  of  Jesus,  but  it  has 
often  been  and  still  is  set  aside  by  theology,  in  favour  of 
the  theory  that  the  divine  forgiveness  depends  upon  our 
holding  "right  views"  of  the  atonement.  This  is  one 
of  the  many  ways  in  which  the  persistent  '  'leaven  of  the 
Pharisees"  has  supplanted  the  direct  teaching  of  Jesus. 

The  necessity  of  forgiving  as  a  ground  of  being  for- 
given was  the  result  of  profound  psychological  intuition 
on  the  part  of  Jesus;  for,  while  one  experiences  the  evil 
thoughts  which  grow  out  of  an  unforgiving  state  of 
mind,  one  cannot  appreciate  nor  acquire  the  peace  of 
God  which   follows    emancipation   from   an   evil   act 


210  The  Historic  Jesus 

or  habit.  Nor  can  one  properly  expect  for  himself 
what  he  is  unwilling  to  bestow  upon  others. 

The  examination  of  this  prayer  compels  us  to  believe, 
on  account  of  its  simplicity,  its  comprehensiveness* 
and  the  moral  and  spiritual  conditions  which  it  pre- 
supposes, that  it  must  have  originated  with  Jesus,  and 
in  the  simpler  form  as  given  by  Luke,  notwith- 
standing the  fact  that  it  was  overlooked  by  the  writer 
of  the  earlier  Gospel.  And  yet,  if  Jesus  actually  gave 
the  disciples  a  formulated  prayer,  he  never  for  an  in- 
stant thought  of  prayer  as  the  ceaseless  repetition 
of  a  formula,  as  if  the  fixed  words  possessed  a  magical 
efficacy  and  exercised  a  compelling  power  upon  God; 
for  prayer  with  him  was  not  an  observance,  but  a 
constant  mental  attitude.  This  he  illustrated  in  the 
story,  the  point  of  which  was  importunity.  What  one 
desired  with  such  intensity  that  he  never  for  a  moment 
stopped  asking  for  it,  he  would  be  sure  to  get. 

Jesus  always  taught  these  great  truths  not  theo- 
retically, but  as  the  result  of  his  own  experience 
and,  therefore,  he  could  assure  his  disciples,  "Every 
one  that  asketh  receiveth ;  and  he  that  seeketh  findeth ; 
and  to  him  that  knocketh  it  will  be  opened."  And 
then  he  taught  the  reasonableness  of  this  belief.  Men, 
who  were  not  perfect,  naturally  did  the  best  they  knew 
how  by  their  children  and,  therefore,  God,  who  was 
perfect,  would  just  as  naturally  do  his  infinite  best  for 
his  children,  by  giving  them  the  stimulus  and  power 
for  the  higher  development  and  growth.  The  only 
conditions  were  the  constant  asking  based  on  intense 
desire.  On  these  conditions,  the  result  of  prayer  was 
inevitable.  Jesus  spoke  from  faith  and  experience, 
but  his  teaching  anticipated  the  psychology  of  prayer 
by  more  than  nineteen  centuries. 


Luke  xi,  14-36;  Matt,  xii,  22-4$ 

Luke  introduces  into  his  long  narrative  of  the  sup- 
posed journey  through  Samaria  accounts  which  have 
no  connection  with  one  another  as  regards  time  and 
place,  some  of  which  belong  in  or  near  Jerusalem,  others 
in  Galilee.  The  account  of  the  claim  of  the  Pharisees 
that  Jesus  was  casting  out  devils  by  the  aid  of  Satan 
belonged  in  Galilee  and  is  given  by  Mark  at  the  proper 
place.  Luke  suppressed  it  in  copying  Mark's  narra- 
tive and  gave  it  here  from  another  source.  He  assigns 
the  notion  to  the  people  generally,  whereas  it  was 
undoubtedly  a  device  of  the  Pharisees  to  discredit 
Jesus  with  the  multitude. 

The  demand  for  a  "sign"  also  belonged  to  another 
period  of  the  Galilean  ministry.     (Mark  viii,  li.) 

Verses  24  to  26  have  no  connection  with  what  pre- 
cedes or  follows  and  contain  neither  instruction,  warn- 
ing, nor  encouragement,  but  record  the  fact  that  cures 
of  insanity  were  sometimes  only  temporary  quietings, 
while  the  return  of  violence  would  be  popularly 
explained  by  the  notion  that  the  victim  had  willingly 
admitted  more  devils  than  before.  This  might  suggest 
that  a  man  delivered  from  the  dominion  of  passions 
and  evil  habits  fell  to  a  lower  depth  of  immorality  if  he 
yielded  to  temptation;  but,  as  the  teaching  of  Jesus 


212  The  Historic  Jesus 

was  always  brought  out  by  individual  cases,  it  is  hardly 
probable  that  this  can  have  come  from  him. 

Luke  found  in  Mark's  Gospel,  in  connection  with 
the  charge  that  he  cast  out  devils  with  the  help  of  the 
prince  of  devils,  the  account  of  the  coming  of  the 
mother  and  brothers  of  Jesus  to  take  him  home  by 
force  (Mark,  iii,  31),  together  with  the  saying  of  Jesus, 
as  he  turned  to  his  disciples,  ' '  these  are  my  mother  and 
my  brethren."  This  account  he  entirely  obliterates 
with  his  story  of  a  woman,  who  cried  out,  "Blessed 
is  the  womb  that  bare  thee,  and  the  breasts  which  thou 
didst  suck,"  and  the  answer  of  Jesus,  "Yea,  rather, 
blessed  are  they  that  hear  the  word  of  God  and  keep 
it."  By  the  time  when  Luke  wrote,  the  Christians 
had  willingly  forgotten  the  prejudice  of  the  family 
of  Jesus  against  him  and  remembered  only  that  his 
mother  had  been  a  devotee  in  Jerusalem  and  his  brother 
James  the  head  of  the  Christian  organisation.  Senti- 
ment had  already  obscured  history. 

Verses  29  to  32  are  an  enlargement  upon  the  original 
fact,  as  stated  by  Mark,  (viii,  11.)  It  was  commonly 
believed  that  the  Messiah  would  work  greater  miracles 
than  any  related  in  the  Hebrew  Scriptures.  The 
Pharisees,  in  order  to  discredit  Jesus  with  the  multi- 
tude, demande  1  a  miracle  and  he  had  replied  that 
there  would  be  no  miracle.  The  Christians,  after- 
wards, believing  as  the  Pharisees  did,  that  the  Messiah 
must  give  some  great  sign  in  attestation  of  his  Messiah- 
ship,  could  not  help  adding  the  words,  "but  the  sign 
of  Jonah, "  meaning  thereby  that  the  physical  resurrec- 
tion of  Jesus,  which  was  part  of  the  later  belief,  was  the 
overwhelming  evidence  that  he  was  the  Messiah. 

Luke  found  among  the  traditions  this  popular  ad- 
dition to  the  words  of  Jesus,  but  he  did  not  see  the  point. 


Jesus  on  the  Way  to  Jerusalem      213 

The  people  of  Nineveh  repented  at  the  preaching  of 
Jonah.  The  Queen  of  Sheba  took  a  long  journey  to 
profit  by  the  wisdom  of  Solomon.  They  would  both 
condemn  this  generation  for  not  recognising  one  greater 
than  Jonah  or  Solomon,  that  is,  the  Messiah,  but  such 
a  condemnation  could  not  be  called  "  the  sign  of  Jonah  " 
and  Luke  had  forgotten  that  Jesus  had  forbidden  the 
disciples  to  tell  any  one  of  their  belief  that  he  was  the 
Messiah.  The  generation  could  not  be  condemned  for 
not  knowing  what  he  wished  to  keep  hidden.  Luke 
was  confused  and  missed  the  point  altogether.  Mat- 
thew, (xii,  40,)  afterwards  brought  it  out  distinctly.  "As 
Jonah  was  three  days  and  three  nights  in  the  belly  of 
the  whale;  so  will  the  Son  of  man  be  three  days  and 
three  nights  in  the  heart  of  the  earth." 

This,  then,  was  to  be  the  "sign"  such  as  the  Pharisees 
demanded  in  proof  that  Jesus  was  the  Messiah.  It 
was  the  "sign"  upon  which  the  Jewish  Christians 
relied  for  converting  their  fellow  countrymen  to  their 
belief.  The  account,  as  given  in  Matthew's  Gospel, 
records  the  state  of  belief  and  methods  of  propagandism 
early  in  the  second  century,  but  not  the  belief  or  words 
of  Jesus. 

Luke  xi,  37-54;  Matt,  xxiii 

This  denunciation  of  the  Pharisees  could  have  been 
delivered  only  in  Jerusalem,  certainly  not  in  Samaria, 
where  there  were  no  Pharisees,  and  hardly  in  the  house 
of  a  Pharisee,  where  Jesus  was  the  guest  of  honour. 

Luke  xii,  1-12;  Matt,  x,  26-33,  I7~20 

This  is  a  record  which  belongs  to  the  days  in  Galilee, 


214  The  Historic  Jesus 

when  Jesus  had  warned  the  disciples  against  the  beliefs, 
attitude,  and  spirit  of  the  Pharisees,  all  included  under 
the  term  "leaven,"  and  had  bidden  them  not  to  con- 
sider his  teaching  as  a  private  treasure  of  their  own,  but 
to  proclaim  it  everj^where,  regardless  of  consequences, 
not  fearing  men  but  the  punishment  of  God  if  they 
neglected  their  duty,  yet  always  sure  of  the  protection 
of  God  if  they  did  their  duty.  To  strengthen  their 
confidence  still  more,  he  assured  them  that  those  who 
acknowledged  him  before  men,  the  Son  of  man,  the 
Messiah,  would  acknowledge  at  the  judgment.  He 
does  not  identify  himself  with  the  Messiah,  while,  by 
"confessing"  him  before  men,  he  does  not  mean  hold- 
ing certain  views,  opinions,  or  beliefs  about  him,  but 
he  means  beUeving  his  message,  his  Gospel,  the  good 
news  that  the  Kingdom  was  coming.  That  was  what 
he  always  asked  of  men,  to  beheve  the  Gospel,  to 
beHeve  him  as  the  bringer  of  the  message.  He  did 
not  care  what  men  believed  about  him  personally.  His 
whole  concern  was  that  they  should  believe  his  message. 
The  eleventh  verse  is  a  reminiscence  of  later  mission- 
ary activities,  when  the  preachers  of  a  new  belief  were 
in  danger  from  both  Jews  and  pagans.  The  teaching 
cannot  have  come  from  Jesus,  who  anticipated  no  such 
conditions,  but  always  expected  that  the  Kingdom  of 
God  would  come  during  the  life  of  the  generation  then 
living.  Luke  found  this  in  Mark's  eschatological 
chapter,  (Mk.  xiii)  and  possibly  in  other  sources  and 
traditions,  but  was  tmable  to  realise  that  a  new  reUgion 
for  the  world,  such  as  was  being  preached  in  his  day, 
was  totally  foreign  to  the  thought  of  Jesus. 

Luke  xii,  13-21 

Many  events  in  the  life  of  Jesus  and  isolated  sayings 


Jesus  on  the  Way  to  Jerusalem      215 

of  his  floated  dovra  the  stream  of  tradition  and  were 
eventually  woven  together  into  a  continuous  narrative, 
but  without  any  real  connection.  It  is  so  here.  The 
event  undoubtedly  happened,  the  saying  and  the 
parable  are  undoubtedly  genuine,  but  they  do  not 
belong  together. 

A  man  in  the  crowd,  on  one  occasion  in  Galilee, 
appealed  to  Jesus  to  compel  his  brother  to  divide  the 
inheritance  with  him.  The  Jews  had  no  law  but  the 
so-called  law  of  Moses  and  controversies  were  settled 
by  the  rehgious  authorities,  not  by  civil  courts.  It 
is  still  largely  the  custom  in  the  Orient  under  the 
Mohammedan  religion.  The  man  who  appealed  to 
Jesus  did  so  because  he  recognised  him  as  a  prophet, 
or  thought  that  he  might  be  the  Messiah.  But  Jesus 
repudiated  the  appeal  with  the  words:  "Man,  who 
made  me  a  judge,  or  a  divider  over  you?"  In  other 
words,  I  am  not  the  Messiah  and  therefore  have  no 
jurisdiction  in  the  case.  This  is  a  direct  repudiation 
of  Messiahship  on  the  part  of  Jesus,  which  has  been 
generally  overlooked. 

The  warning  against  covetousness  is  undoubtedly 
genuine,  but  does  not  belong  in  this  connection,  for 
there  is  nothing  in  the  brief  narrative  to  show  that  the 
man  was  covetous,  but  only  that  he  was  seeking  justice. 
He  was  entitled  to  his  share  of  the  inheritance  and  was 
being  kept  out  of  it  by  his  brother.  He  thought  that 
his  brother  would  be  obliged  to  respect  a  decision  by 
the  Messiah. 

In  warning  against  the  great  desire  for  material 
things  as  the  chief  source  of  happiness,  Jesus  enimciated 
one  of  the  great  principles,  which  made  his  teaching 
immortal.  "A  man's  life  consisteth  not  in  the  abund- 
ance of  the   things   which  he   possesseth. "     As  with 


2i6  The  Historic  Jesus 

all  the  other  great  truths,  which  he  declared,  this  came 
out  of  his  own  experience.  He  knew  the  depth  and 
power  and  joy  of  life  itself,  the  soul  life,  with  its 
unlimited  capacities  for  knowing,  feeling,  loving,  and 
serving.  In  comparison  with  its  infinitude  of  joy,  the 
ordinary  human  ideal,  which  made  material  possessions 
the  great  source  of  happiness,  dwindles  away  to  nothing. 
He  was  not  recommending  asceticism,  but  declaring  a 
principle  which  had  grown  out  of  his  experience,  that 
the  source  of  happiness  was  in  life  itself  and  its  un- 
limited wealth  of  capacities,  and  not  in  external  things. 

There  follows,  (v.  i6,)  a  parable,  not  connected  with 
what  precedes,  but  with  what  follows. 

A  rich  farmer  had  a  great  crop  and  no  place  to  put 
it.  He  therefore  built  larger  bams  which,  when  filled 
with  grain,  gave  him  much  pleasure  as  he  looked  for- 
ward to  many  years  of  comfort  and  plenty;  but  no 
sooner  were  the  new  bams  finished  than  he  died. 

A  parable  is  an  illustration  of  a  single  truth,  and  the 
truth  which  this  one  illustrates  must  have  to  do  with 
special  circumstances  and  emergencies  and  can  never 
have  been  intended  to  be  of  general  application,  for 
otherwise  it  would  seem  to  teach  that  a  man  who  had 
too  large  a  crop  for  his  accommodations  would  do  well 
to  let  the  surplus  go  to  ruin  on  the  ground,  lest  God 
should  be  jealous  of  his  prosperity  and  want  his  soul. 
This  is  the  interpretation  which  ignorant  and  super- 
stitious people  in  all  the  Christian  ages  have  put  upon 
it,  and  thousands  of  men  have  been  afraid  to  build  a 
new  house,  but  have  altered  and  enlarged  an  old  one 
whenever  they  pleased,  lest  a  new  one  should  be  the 
cause  of  their  death. 

The  parable  constituted  part  of  the  warning  and 
instruction    to    the    disciples    and    others    who    were 


Jesus  on  the  Way  to  Jerusalem      217 

willing  to  go  with  Jesus  on  the  perilous  journey  to 
Jerusalem.  They  were  obliged  to  break  away  from 
everything  in  their  former  life,  whether  it  were  fishing, 
or  farming,  or  whatever  it  might  be,  and  have  no  in- 
terests left  behind  them,  because  the  Kingdom  of  God, 
putting  an  end  to  all  existing  conditions,  was  coming, 
and  coming  verj''  soon.  If  they  held  back  from  the 
great  imdertaking  of  preparing  the  way  for  it  and  clung 
to  their  property  and  material  occupations,  they  would 
be  like  a  farmer  who  built  new  bams  for  his  harvest, 
but  died  without  enjoying  his  prosperity,  for  the  King- 
dom would  come,  and  in  the  preceding  judgment  they 
and  their  property  and  their  business  would  all  be 
swept  away  together.  Thus  the  parable  acquires  its 
place  in  history  and  serves  to  illustrate  the  intensity 
of  devotion  and  enthusiasm  with  which  Jesus  and  his 
friends  undertook  the  journey  to  Jerusalem. 

Luke  xii,  22-31;  Matt,  vi,  25-33 

The  extraordinary  teaching  contained  in  the  rest  of 
this  and  part  of  the  following  chapter,  and  incorrectly 
incorporated  by  Matthew  in  the  so-called  "Sermon  on 
the  Mount,"  has  been  entirely  misimderstood,  with 
most  imfortunate  consequences. 

On  the  supposition  that  Jesus  was  consciously  found- 
ing a  new  religion  for  the  world,  with  a  Church  as  the 
organic  form  of  its  life,  it  has  been  taken  for  granted 
that  in  this  teaching  he  was  laying  down  rules  for  the 
perpetual  guidance  of  its  members;  but,  as  experience 
has  shown  the  impracticability  of  such  a  standard  of 
conduct  on  any  large  scale,  it  has  been  claimed  by  some 
that  the  religion  of  Jesus  sets  forth  visionary  and 
impossible  ideals,   and  by   others    that   he  made  the 


2i8  The  Historic  Jesus 

standards  high  in  order  to  lead  the  world  to  struggle 
gradually  up  to  them.  For  centuries  the  problem  of  an 
impossible  ideality  seemed  to  be  solved  by  assuming 
that  monasticism  was  the  only  really  religious  life, 
while  penances  and  indulgences  made  good  the  deficit 
for  the  multitude.  Among  Protestants  there  has 
always  been  a  feeling  of  sub-conscious  hypocrisy,  in 
that  they  accepted  a  standard  of  conduct  which  they 
made  no  effort  to  attain.  All  this  unfortunate  blunder- 
ing might  have  been  saved  by  a  very  little  realisation 
of  the  facts  of  history.  Jesus  was  not  thinking  of  a 
religion  for  the  world,  nor  of  rules  and  principles  for 
humanity  at  large.  He  was  going  to  Jerusalem  to 
proclaim  the  corning  of  the  Kingdom  of  God,  than 
which  a  bolder  project  was  never  conceived  nor  exe- 
cuted. He  had  persuaded  his  disciples  to  go  with  him, 
with  the  sacrifice  of  everything  at  the  start  and  the 
certainty  of  peril  at  the  end  of  the  journey.  It  was 
necessary  to  equip  these  men  with  unconquerable 
courage,  with  absolute  faith,  with  overwhelming  enthus- 
iasm. They  were  to  leave  everything  behind  them, 
to  take  nothing  with  them,  and  to  set  out  with  nothing 
but  their  faith  in  God  to  lay  siege  to  the  stronghold 
of  an  ancient  religion,  a  rich  and  powerful  hierarchy, 
and  an  orthodojcy  barricaded  behind  mountains  and 
centuries  of  authorities.  There  is  no  romance  in  all  the 
annals  of  chivalry  equal  to  that  of  the  little  flock 
which  set  out  from  Galilee  nearly  nineteen  centuries 
ago  to  inherit  the  vineyard  of  God. 

Many  questions  arose  before  their  departure.  They 
sold  their  boats,  their  little  fields,  their  houses.  What 
should  they  do  with  the  proceeds ;  take  them  with  them? 
Jesus  said.  No!  Give  it  all  away.  "Sell  that  ye  have 
and  give  alms;  make  for  yourselves  purses  which  wax 


Jesus  on   the  Way  to  Jerusalem      219 

not  old,  a  treasure  in  the  heavens  that  faileth  not,  where 
no  thief  draweth  near,  neither  moth  destroyeth. " 
They  were  to  take  neither  money,  nor  extra  baggage,  nor 
to  have  any  anxiety  about  property  left  behind  them. 
But  some  of  them  said,  shall  we  not  need  money  by  the 
way  to  buy  food,  or  perhaps  clothes?  But  Jesus  said: 
" Do  not  be  anxious  for  your  life,  what  ye  shall  eat;  nor 
yet  for  your  body,  what  ye  shall  put  on.  For  the  life 
is  more  than  the  food  and  the  body  than  the  raiment. 
Consider  the  ravens,  that  they  sow  not,  neither  reap; 
which  have  no  store-chamber  nor  bam;  and  God 
feedeth  them ;  of  how  much  more  value  are  ye  than  the 
birds?  And  which  of  you  by  being  anxious  can  add 
one  cubit  to  his  statiure?  If  ye  then  are  not  able  to  do 
even  that  which  is  least,  why  are  ye  anxious  concerning 
the  rest?  Consider  the  lilies  how  they  grow;  they 
toil  not,  neither  do  they  spin;  yet  I  say  unto  you.  Even 
Solomon  in  all  his  glory  was  not  arrayed  Uke  one  of 
them.  But,  if  God  doth  so  clothe  the  grass  in  the 
field,  which  to-day  is  and  to-morrow  is  cast  into  the 
oven,  how  much  more  will  he  clothe  you,  O  ye  of  little 
faith?  And  seek  not  ye  what  ye  shall  eat,  and  what  ye 
shall  drink,  neither  be  ye  of  doubtful  mind.  For  all 
these  things  do  the  nations  of  the  world  seek  after :  but 
your  Father  knoweth  that  ye  have  need  of  these  things. 
Howbeit  seek  ye  his  Kingdom  and  these  things  will 
be  added  unto  you.  Fear  not  little  flock;  for  it  is  your 
Father's  good  pleasure  to  give  you  the  Kingdom." 
It  is  wonderful  how  these  words  come  to  life,  when  we 
see  Jesus  and  his  disciples  in  some  obscure  comer  of 
pagan  territory  and  listen  as  he  tries  to  mould  those 
men  into  heroes  and  to  kindle  the  fire  of  a  sublime 
devotion  in  their  souls.  And  can  there  be  any  doubt 
but  that  these  words  were  addressed  to  them  alone 


220  The  Historic  Jesus 

and  for  the  one  great  purpose  of  developing  in  them 
heroic  faith  and  courage?  The  words,  "how  much 
more  will  he  clothe  you,  O  ye  of  little  faith"  and  "Fear 
not,  Uttle  flock"  are  evidence  enough. 

These  men,  who  were  doing  the  work  of  God,  were 
to  trust  God  and  therefore  were  to  set  forth,  not  only 
without  money  or  encumbrance,  but  without  the  least 
anxiety.  They  were  of  more  value  than  the  birds,  and 
their  Heavenly  Father  knew  that  they  needed  food  and 
clothes.  They  were  to  have  but  one  thought,  one  goal, 
one  interest  in  life  and  thai,  was  his  Kingdom — his 
actual  coming  to  establish  his  personal  reign  on  earth 
and  all  the  things  that  they  needed  would  be  provided 
for  them.  They  had  still  greater  cause  for  proceeding 
on  their  great  undertaking  without  fear,  for  it  was  their 
Father's  good  pleasure  to  give  them  the  Kingdom. 

When  it  came,  they  who  had  been  instrumental  in 
its  coming  would  have  a  grand  share  both  in  its  material 
comforts  and  its  spiritual  joy.  Therefore,  by  selling 
their  property  and  giving  away  the  proceeds,  their 
treasure  would  be  imperishable  in  that  divine  Kingdom, 
established  in  this  world  and  extending  into  the  heavens. 
If  they  kept  their  property,  they  would  still  be  inter- 
ested in  it.  They  must  give  it  all  away,  that  their 
treasure  might  be  wholly  in  the  coming  Kingdom  and 
then  every  interest  in  life  would  be  there  also. 

Thus  we  find  that,  in  interpreting  the  Gospel  narra- 
tive by  the  light  of  history,  not  only  do  we  gain  a  better 
realisation  of  the  special  training  of  the  disciples  for 
their  colossal  undertaking,  but  we  learn  that  Jesus 
did  not  establish  impossible  standards  for  all  men  in 
all  ages,  that  monasticism  is  not  the  normal  result  of 
his  teaching,  nor  a  thinly-veiled  hypocrisy  a  possible 
outcome.     And  yet,  while  this  teaching  was  for  the 


Jesus  on  the  Way  to  Jerusalem        221 

disciples  and  was  a  means  for  equipping  them  for  their 
great  undertaking,  there  have  been  thousands  of  men, 
in  all  subsequent  ages,  who,  imder  the  pressure  of  a 
grand  ideal,  have  faced  a  similar  crisis  and  been  led  to 
make  like  sacrifices,  finding  courage  in  the  words  of 
Jesus  and  learning  from  him  a  larger  faith  in  God, 
since,  because  they  were  working  for  divine  purposes, 
they  were  of  more  value  than  the  birds. 

Luke  xii,  32-40 

The  ideality  which  led  these  men  on  was  stronger 
than  the  sacrifices  which  they  made  and  the  dangers 
which  they  were  to  encounter;  for,  after  the  struggle, 
they  were  sure  of  victory.  It  was  their  Father's  good 
pleasure  to  give  them  the  Kingdom.  They  were  to 
set  forth,  therefore,  without  fear,  with  the  sound  of 
victory  already  ringing  in  their  hearts.  What  mattered 
the  giving  away  of  their  property?  When  the  reign  of 
God  was  established,  there  would  be  treasure  enough 
for  those  who  had  helped  to  bring  it  about,  an  eternal 
treasure,  which  could  never  be  stolen,  nor  destroyed. 
They  were  to  set  out,  therefore,  in  the  spirit  of  intense 
expectancy,  as  it  were  in  light  marching  order  by  day, 
their  lanterns  burning  at  night,  their  loins  girded,  like 
men  who  were  expecting  their  lord's  return  from 
a  marriage  feast  whither  he  had  gone.  When  he  came, 
whether  in  the  second,  or  the  third  watch  of  the  night, 
he  would  make  a  feast  and  serve  them.  They  were 
to  keep  on  the  watch,  with  as  much  interest  as  a  man 
who  was  protecting  his  property  against  thieves.  If  he 
had  known  that  the  thief  was  really  coming  he  would 
have  watched  and  not  have  let  his  house  be  broken 
into.     They  knew  that  the  Kingdom  was  coming  and. 


222  The  Historic  Jesus 

therefore,  they  must  not  cease  their  expectancy  for  an 
instant,  but  be  always  ready,  for  in  an  hour  that  they 
thought  not  the  Son  of  man  would  come. 

The  "Son  of  Man"  here  means  the  Messiah  and 
Jesus  is  represented  as  speaking  of  him  as  entirely 
distinct  from  himself,  and  as  a  symbol  in  accordance 
with  the  Book  of  Daniel,  not  as  a  person.  Such  is  the 
spirit  of  exalted  enthusiasm  in  which  the  disciples  set 
out  to  accompany  him  to  Jerusalem.  They  were 
going  to  witness  the  end  of  an  epoch  in  Jewish  history 
and  the  beginning  of  a  new  oiie  in  which  they  were  to 
share  and  which  at  any  instant  might  break  through 
the  clouds.  This  is  very  different  from  the  later  belief 
that  a  sad  and  dazed  company  of  men  went  mournfully 
to  Jerusalem  because  Jesus  had  told  them  that  he  was 
going  there  to  die. 

Luke  xii,  41-49;  Matt,  xxiv  45-51 

The  distinction  between  different  strata  of  belief 
was  not  clear  in  the  early  Christian  day,  nor,  in  fact, 
has  it  been  since,  until  quite  recently,  and  yet  there  is  a 
faint  suggestion  of  such  a  consciousness  in  the  question 
which  Luke  assigns  to  Peter,  "Lord,  speakest  thou 
this  parable  urto  us,  or  even  unto  all,"  for,  while 
what  follows  is  undoubtedly  based  upon  what  had  been 
teachings  of  Jesus,  in  its  present  form  it  applies  neither 
to  the  disciples  nor  to  other  friends  of  Jesus  in  his  day, 
but  represents  the  attitude  and  belief  of  a  later  Christian 
generation.  There  were  then  congregations  with 
stewards  over  them  appointed  to  instruct  them  in  the 
Gospel.  The  original  duties  of  readiness  and  expect- 
ancy were  still  uppermost,  but  now  the  expectation  of 
a  second  coming  of  Jesus  as  the  Messiah,  with  power 


Jesus  on  the  Way  to  Jerusalem        223 

and  glory,  was  the  Christian  belief.  The  servant 
whom  his  Lord  when  he  came  found  properly  preparing 
the  people  for  his  coming  would  be  rewarded  with  a 
large  dominion,  while  the  servant  who,  because  the 
coming  was  delayed,  had  begun  to  abuse  his  trust 
would  be  cast  out,  to  suffer  the  fate  of  the  unchristian 
world.  He  who  knew  better  would  be  punished 
severely,  while  he  who  erred  through  ignorance  would 
receive  a  light  punishment,  because,  as  Jesus  undoubt- 
edly taught,  the  judgment  upon  life  would  be  in  exact 
proportion  to  the  gifts  bestowed. 

Luke  xii,  49-53;  Matt,  x,  34,  35 

The  narrative  returns  to  Jesus  and  his  disciples, 
before  the  journey  to  Jerusalem.  They  had  been 
assured  of  victory  in  their  great  undertaking  and  yet 
they  would  have  no  triumphal  journey,  for  they  were 
going  to  certain  conflict  and  suffering  and  Jesus  assured 
them  that  the  result  of  his  work  among  men  would  be 
to  set  the  world  on  fire,  the  little  world  of  Judaism, 
which  was  the  only  world  they  knew,  to  set  it  on  fire 
by  stirring  up  the  most  intense  passions  of  the  human 
heart,  the  bitterness  and  hatred  of  religious  strife. 
They  were  to  try  to  transform  men  into  fitness  for 
citizenship  in  the  Kingdom  of  God  and  would  thus  be 
brought  into  conflict  with  venerable  beliefs  and  long- 
established  customs,  for  the  new  religious  equipment 
anticipated  nothing  less  than  the  substitution  of  con- 
science for  law,  the  spontaneity  of  goodness  for  the 
keeping  of  rules,  the  responsibility  of  moral  judgment 
for  all  external  conformities,  the  right  of  personal 
access  to  God  without  the  intervention  of  a  priesthood, 
the  reaHty  of  forgiveness  without  payment  in  the  form 


224  The  Historic  Jesus 

of  sacrifice,  the  right  and  duty  of  thinking  instead  of 
accepting  the  petrified  thoughts  of  a  theological  coterie. 

All  this  was  wrapped  up  in  the  purpose  of  Jesus  to  go 
to  Jerusalem,  the  germ  of  the  age-long  struggle  of  the 
human  race  for  emancipation,  growth,  attainment, 
and  power  and  the  consequent  kindling  of  the  fire 
which  has  been  bimiing  ever  since,  breaking  out  with 
new  intensity  ever  and  again,  as  the  centuries  go  by, 
as  in  the  work  of  Paul  and  Luther,  in  the  French 
Revolution,  in  the  Declaration  of  American  Independ- 
ence, and  in  the  divine  unrest  of  the  present  day. 

The  consequences  of  his  work  have  been  infinitely 
greater  than  he  knew,  for  every  step  in  the  emancipa- 
tion of  mankind  from  the  barrenness  of  mechanical 
reUgion  and  the  deadness  of  the  letter  is  a  preparation, 
not  for  a  Kingdom  of  God  established  in  Jerusalem, 
but  for  an  eternal  Kingdom  of  God  estabHshed  in  the 
heart  of  a  full-grown  human  race  and  illuminating 
the  universe  with  its  transcendent  attainments  of 
goodness,  beauty,  and  truth.  The  world  does  well  to 
praise  and  worship  its  greatest  deliverer,  but  has  never 
yet  appreciated  the  clearness  of  perception,  nor  the 
sublimity  of  heroism  which  sent  Jesus  forth  virtually 
single-handed,  for  the  disciples  contributed  nothing 
but  love  and  sympathy,  to  attack  a  great  religion  which 
he  knew  had  become  an  obstacle  to  the  progress  of 
mankind.  It  is  no  wonder  that,  in  realising  the  in- 
evitable bitterness  of  strife,  he  told  the  disciples  that 
his  mission  was  to  kindle  a  fire  upon  earth,  nor  any 
wonder  that,  in  seeing  the  necessity,  he  was  in  haste 
to  have  the  fire  kindled,  that  it  might  be  the  sooner 
over  and  as  large  a  company  as  possible  be  rescued  for 
the  Kingdom  of  God.  Perhaps  he  told  them  that  he 
had  a  baptism  to  be  baptised  with  and  would  gladly 


Jesus  on  the  Way  to  Jerusalem        225 

have  it  accomplished.  The  traditional  interpretation 
that  this  referred  to  his  death  is  simply  impossible. 
It  could  refer  only  to  the  conflict,  which  he  was  sure 
awaited  him  in  Jerusalem,  but  the  conflict  would  pass 
and  then  would  come  the  victory.  The  disciples  had 
been  thinking  that  he  was  the  Messiah,  part  of  whose 
mission  was  believed  to  be  to  establish  peace  on  earth; 
but,  no!  he  had  not  come  to  establish  peace,  but 
division.  When  the  fire  was  kindled  and  the  flames 
of  religious  controversy  spread  over  the  land,  families 
would  be  divided,  three  against  two,  father  against 
son,  mother  against  daughter. 

This  prospect  weighed  heavily  upon  the  heart  of 
Jesus,  who  shrank  from  conflict  for  himself  and  would 
willingly  have  calmed  the  passions  of  men,  but  who 
could  see  no  other  way  for  setting  them  free  from  the 
thralldom  of  the  theologian  and  the  dominion  of  the 
priest  but  to  kindle  in  individual  hearts  such  a  new 
consciousness  of  the  dignity  and  responsibility  of 
manhood  as  to  make  a  struggle  inevitable. 

Luke  xii,  54-59 

Luke  turns  to  a  talk  to  the  multitude,  presumably  in 
Galilee,  of  which  he  gives  a  fragment.  The  people 
could  tell  the  signs  of  the  weather  and  ought  to  be  able 
to  tell  the  signs  of  the  coming  of  the  Kingdom  of  God 
from  the  many  cures  which  they  saw  and  which  Jesus 
always  interpreted  as  evidence  that  the  dominion  of 
Satan  was  nearly  over.  The  argiiment  was  that,  as 
when  a  creditor  arrested  any  one  for  debt,  he  paid 
rather  than  to  go  to  prison,  so,  now  that  the  great 
judgment  was  about  to  begin,  it  would  be  wise  for  men 
to  settle  their  accounts  with  God  by  reforming  their 


226  The  Historic  Jesus 

lives,  rather  than  to  wait  until  it  was  too  late  and  they 
were  swept  away  in  the  destruction  which  awaited 
the   \\dcked. 

Luke  xiii,  i-j 

The  scene  changes  to  Jerusalem.  Jesus  is  warning 
the  multitude  of  the  danger  of  putting  off  the  reforma- 
tion of  their  lives  until  it  is  too  late  and  against  any 
feeling  of  false  security.  It  was  commonly  believed 
by  the  Jews  that  calamities  were  punishments  and 
therefore  evidences  of  guilt,  but  this  is  one  of  the  popu- 
lar delusions,  which  Jesus  combatted.  The  men  who 
were  killed  at  one  time,  when  Pilate  put  down  a  riot, 
or  those  who  lost  their  lives  by  the  falling  of  the  tower 
of  Siloam,  were  not  any  worse  than  other  men.  The 
judgment  and  subsequent  destruction  of  the  wicked, 
in  order  to  make  the  world  a  fit  place  for  the  Kingdom 
of  God,  were  surely  coming  and  would  overtake  them 
all,  imless  they  changed  their  lives  and  made  them- 
selves fit  for  the  Kingdom.  He  told  a  parable  to 
illustrate  the  fact  that  God  was  patient,  but  that  there 
was  a  limit  to  his  patience.  A  fig  tree  had  borne  no 
figs  for  three  years.  The  owner  of  the  vineyard  pro- 
posed to  cut  it  down,  but  the  vinedresser  begged  for 
one  year  more,  that  he  might  see  what  special  care 
would  do  for  it.  Then,  if  there  were  no  figs,  it  might  be 
cut  down.  The  moral  of  the  parable  was  that  the 
Jewish  people  were  having  their  last  chance.  If  there 
were  no  figs  this  year,  their  day  was  over.  While 
the  heart  of  Jesus  overflowed  with  joy  at  the  glorious 
prospects  of  life  in  the  new  Kingdom,  the  comforting 
of  those  who  mourned,  the  feeding  of  the  hungry,  the 
binding  up  of  wounds,  or,  as  we  should  say,  the  aboli- 


Jesus  on  the  Way  to  Jerusalem       227 

tion  of  crime,  poverty,  and  disease,  he  never  forgot  and 
never  omitted  to  warn  men  that  the  new  conditions  of 
life  could  not  be  realised  until  after  all  that  was  evil 
had  been  eliminated  from  human  life,  and  there  were 
only  two  ways  open,  either  to  change  their  lives  so 
completely  as  to  produce  the  fruits  of  righteousness 
now,  or  to  be  swept  away  in  the  coming  destruction. 
The  reference  to  "three  years"  in  the  parable  has  been 
supposed  and,  perhaps  justly,  to  refer  to  visits  in  three 
previous  years  made  by  Jesus  to  Jerusalem. 

Luke  xiii,  10-17 

This  is  an  account  of  a  healing  in  Galilee  and  of  the 
old  conflict  with  Pharisaism,  because  the  healing  took 
place  on  the  Sabbath,  but  it  shows  especially  how  the 
sound  moral  judgment  of  Jesus  always  discovered  and 
disclosed  the  weakness  and  absurdity  of  Pharisaism. 
It  was  impossible  to  carry  out  completely  all  the 
applications  of  the  law  against  labour  on  the  Sabbath, 
and  they  who  were  so  zealous  for  it  did  not  observe  it 
themselves,  since  they  all  watered  their  cattle  on  that 
day.  If  the  law  could  be  and  was  always  broken  for  the 
relief  of  the  cattle,  how  much  the  more  might  it  be 
disregarded  for  the  relief  of  suffering  humanity.  The 
Pharisees  were  put  to  shame,  but  the  people  saw  the 
point  and  no  doubt  wondered  that  they  had  never 
thought  of  it  before. 

Luke  xiii,  17-22 

This  seemed  to  Luke  a  good  place  to  record  the 
parable  of  the  mustard  seed,  which  he  found  in  Mark's 
Gospel,  (iv,  31),  and  he  added  the  parable  of  the  leaven, 


228  The  Historic  Jesus 

which  teaches  virtually  the  same  tnith,  both  of  them 
setting  forth  the  faith  of  Jesus  that  his  teaching,  buried 
and  lost  temporarily,  was  full  of  power  and  was  working 
mightily  beneath  the  surface  of  the  Jewish  people  and 
at  no  distant  day  would  show  amazing  results  in  a  wide- 
spread transformation  of  the  same  into  fitness  for  the 
Kingdom  of  God. 

Luke  xiii,  2J-JI 

Some  one  came  to  Jesus  with  the  question,  Are  there 
few  that  be  saved?  The  question  meant,  Are  there 
few  who  will  be  admitted  to  the  Kingdom  when  it 
comes?  It  was  purely  a  speculative  question  and  asked 
out  of  curiosity,  but  with  Jesus  the  matter  was  too 
serious  to  speculate  about  and  he  virtually  answered 
the  man,  It  does  not  matter  so  much  to  you  how  many 
will  be  admitted  to  the  Kingdom,  as  whether  you  will 
or  not  and,  without  a  very  serious  struggle,  you  cer- 
tainly will  not;  therefore,  "Strive."  The  entrance  to 
life  is  like  crowding  through  a  narrow  door,  for  you 
must  go  one  at  a  time  and,  in  the  struggle  to  get  in, 
leave  behind  your  present  habits,  beHefs,  prejudices,  and 
ideals.  You  must  begin  the  struggle  at  once,  for  there 
will  be  no  adnission  after  the  Master  of  the  house  has 
shut  the  door,  nor  will  it  avail  to  knock  and  to  clamour 
for  admission,  on  the  ground  that  you  have  always 
been  religious;  for  the  Master  will  say,  "I  know  you 
not,  depart  from  me,  all  ye  workers  of  iniquity.  .  . 
There  will  be  weeping  and  gnashing  of  teeth,  when  ye 
shall  see  Abraham  and  Isaac  and  Jacob  and  all  the 
prophets  in  the  Kingdom  of  God,  and  yourselves  cast 
forth  without.  And  they  will  come  from  the  East  and 
the  West,  from  the  North  and  from  the  South  and   will 


Jesus  on  the  Way  to  Jerusalem       229 

sit  down  in  the  Kingdom  of  God. "  It  was  a  very  realis- 
tic picttire  of  what  Jesus  expected  to  happen  within  the 
experience  of  that  generation.  God  would  establish 
his  Kingdom  upon  earth.  A  judgment  would  precede 
it  to  separate  the  tares  from  the  wheat.  Patriarchs 
and  prophets  and  multitudes  of  righteous  men  out  of  all 
past  generations  would  return  to  enjoy  the  delights  of 
the  Kingdom  which  they  had  anticipated  so  long  ago, 
while  the  supreme  agony  of  the  condemned  woiild  come 
from  seeing  the  glory  of  the  realised  Kingdom  which 
they  had  lost,  because  they  had  been  imwilling  to 
strive. 

There  is  no  suggestion  of  a  Messiah  in  this  passage, 
for  "the  Master  of  the  house"  is  God,  and  Jesus  does 
not  refer  to  himself  at  all. 

Luke  xiii,  31-3$ 

The  scene  is  still  in  Galilee,  before  the  journey  to 
Jerusalem.  The  Pharisees  had  succeeded  in  prejudic- 
ing a  large  proportion  of  the  people  against  Jesus  and 
had  plotted  with  some  of  the  officials  of  Herod  Antipas 
for  his  arrest.  It  is  quite  possible  that,  on  his  final 
return  from  the  territory  of  Philip,  some  of  them  had 
tried  to  frighten  him  away,  lest  the  people  should  be 
won  to  him  again.  As  the  conversation  was  with  the 
Pharisees,  they  certainly  would  not  have  transmitted 
his  answer  to  them;  but,  if  his  answer  was  overheard 
by  some  of  his  disciples  and  was  correctly  reported 
two  generations  later,  it  caimot  be  taken  as  a  declara- 
tion that  Jesus  expected  to  be  killed  in  Jerusalem,  but 
merely  as  evidence  that  the  Pharisees  did  not  frighten 
him,  because,  if  there  were  any  killing  to  be  done, 
Jerusalem  was  the  place  where  they  killed  the  prophets, 


230  The  Historic  Jesus 

therefore  Jesus  would  take  his  time  in  GaHlee  and 
depart  at  his  convenience. 

As  regards  the  lamentation  over  Jerusalem,  the 
account  is  misplaced  here,  since  it  belongs  to  Wednes- 
day of  the  last  week. 

Luke  xiv,  I-3S 

Various  disconnected  events  and  sayings  are  thrown 
together  in  a  stage-setting  in  the  house  of  a  niler  of  the 
Pharisees. 

The  familiar  matter  of  the  healing  on  the  Sabbath 
and  the  impossibility  of  keeping  the  law  come  up  again. 
The  discomfiture  of  the  Pharisees  on  this  point  undoubt- 
edly made  a  great  impression  upon  the  common  people. 

This  time  it  was  not  the  watering  of  cattle  by  which 
the  law  was  broken;  but,  if  an  ass  or  an  ox  fell  into  a 
cistern,  any  one  would  naturally  help  to  pull  him  out 
without  stopping  to  think  of  the  law;  therefore  it  was 
right  to  heal  on  the  Sabbath. 

It  is  quite  possible  that  Jesus  criticised  the  social 
customs  of  his  day,  but,  if  he  did,  these  two  instances 
given  by  Luke  are  the  only  ones  recorded.  It  would 
seem  the  rather  that  these  are  illustrations,  by  which 
Luke  thought  that  he  was  making  the  teaching  of 
Jesus  clearer,  '  ut  without  success.  The  first  account 
illustrates  the  principle,  "He  that  exalteth  himself 
will  be  humbled;  and  he  that  humbleth  himself  will 
be  exalted."  It  was  but  another  form  of  the  great 
teaching  of  Jesus  that  the  service  of  humanity  was  the 
great  duty  of  man,  the  results  of  life  being  in  propor- 
tion to  the  service  rendered,  but  this  truth  was  of 
vastly  wider  application  than  could  be  illustrated  by  a 
warning  against  the  ordinary  human  weakness  of 
crowding  oneself  into  prominence. 


Jesus  on  the  Way  to  Jerusalem        231 

The  warning  against  inviting  the  rich  to  a  banquet 
instead  of  the  poor  is  but  a  feeble  application  of  the 
following  parable  and  illustrates  the  fact  that  it  was  the 
common  people  and  not  the  upper  classes  who  were 
accepting  the  invitation  to  the  divine  banquet  so  soon 
to  be  held.  Taken  literally,  it  would  suspend  all  social 
life  among  people  of  the  same  class  in  favour  of  a 
lower  stratum,  as  the  recipients  of  charity,  and  does 
not  accord  with  the  teaching  of  Jesus,  but  reflects  the 
mental  attitude  of  Luke  who  was  distinctly  socialistic 
in  his  ideas  and  much  prejudiced  against  the  rich  as 
such.  It  is  the  frequent  expression  of  his  own  ideas, 
as  if  they  had  come  from  Jesus,  which  has  created 
the  impression,  among  people  imacquainted  with  the 
critical  study  of  the  Gospels,  that  Jesus  taught  imprac- 
ticable socialistic  ideas.  There  follows  a  genuine 
parable  of  Jesus,  called  forth  by  the  exclamation  by 
one  of  the  guests  at  table:  "Blessed  is  he  that  shall  eat 
bread  in  the  Kingdom  of  God."  It  gave  Jesus  an 
opportunity  to  illustrate  by  a  parable  who  would  be  so 
fortunate  as  to  eat  bread  in  the  Kingdom  of  God. 
Certainly  not  those  who  had  been  first  invited,  the 
representative  classes  of  the  Jewish  people.  They  had 
all  rejected  the  invitation  and  were  Hke  people,  who, 
when  invited  to  a  supper,  found  ready  excuses  for  not 
accepting. 

But  the  supper  would  take  place,  nevertheless,  and 
the  master  of  the  house,  being  angry,  had  sent  his 
servant,  this  was  Jesus  himself,  out  into  the  streets  and 
lanes  of  the  city,  to  bring  in  the  poor,  the  blind,  and  the 
lame.  One  can  well  imagine  the  profound  impression 
which  this  parable  made  upon  those  who  heard  it  and 
who  saw  it  illustrated  by  what  was  going  on  before  them, 
the  rejection  of  the  invitation  to  the  Kingdom  of  God 


232  The  Historic  Jesus 

on  the  part  of  the  Pharisees  and  their  adherents  and 
its  glad  acceptance  by  many  of  the  common  people. 

How  entirely  a  parable  could  be  developed  and  trans- 
formed under  the  play  of  popular  imagination  may  be 
seen  by  turning  to  Matthew's  version  of  this  parable. 
(Mt.  xxii.)  The  "certain  man "  has  become  "a  certain 
king,"  the  supper  a  marriage  feast  for  his  son,  and  the 
invitations  are  delivered  by  his  servants. 

Jesus,  instead  of  doing  the  inviting,  has  become  the 
prince  for  whom  the  feast  is  given,  while  the  apostles 
deliver  the  invitations.  The  "certain  man"  does  not 
simply  send  his  servant  to  invite  the  poor  of  the  city, 
but  he  sends  out  his  armies  to  destroy  the  murderers, 
who  had  killed  his  servants,  and  to  bum  the  city. 
This  refers  distinctly  to  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem. 
Then,  there  being  no  available  guests  left  among  the 
Jews,  the  king  sends  his  servants  out  upon  the  high- 
ways, which  are  the  great  Roman  roads,  to  bid  as 
many  as  they  found  to  the  marriage  feast  and,  as  the 
pagans  gladly  accepted  the  invitations,  the  wedding 
was  furnished  with  guests.  This  is  but  an  illustration 
of  how  easy  it  was  in  the  early  Christian  days  to  change 
inadvertently  the  whole  tenor  of  the  teaching  of  Jesus 
upon  any  point.  Jesus  could  not  have  concluded  any 
of  his  teaching,  at  any  time  of  his  ministry,  with  the 
words  of  the  twenty-fourth  verse,  "  I  say  luito  you  that 
none  of  those  men  which  were  bidden  shall  taste  of  my 
supper, "because,  down  to  the  last  moment  of  his  Hfe,he 
believed  that  the  Kingdom  was  coming  and  that  a  large 
share  of  the  Jewish  people  would  be  ready  for  citizen- 
ship, nor  did  he  ever  anticipate  a  great  mission  in  his 
name  throughout  the  pagan  world. 

The  scene  changes  (v.  35)  to  some  part  of  the  journey 
to  Jerusalem,  when  some  of  the  following  multitude 


Jesus  on  the  Way  to  Jerusalem         233 

attracted  by  Jesus  and  his  company  essayed  to  join 
them.  As  before,  at  the  beginning  of  the  journey, 
Jesus  would  have  no  one  go  with  him  who  had  not  a 
clear  understanding  of  what  the  undertaking  meant 
and  was  willing  to  make  all  the  sacrifices  which  it 
entailed,  so  now  he  would  have  no  one  join  his  company 
who  had  not  first  seriously  counted  the  cost.  He  must 
renounce  all  family  ties  as  completely  as  if  hatred  had 
actually  separated  him  from  his  own  father  and  mother, 
his  wife  and  children,  his  brothers  and  sisters,  and  then 
take  his  life  in  his  hands.  Otherwise  he  might  not  join 
the  little  company  of  enthusiastic,  determined  men, 
which  was  journeying  to  Jerusalem.  He  must  count  the 
cost  as  seriously  as  a  man  who,  in  planning  to  build  a 
tower,  must  ascertain  whether  he  had  money  enough 
to  finish  it  and  must  determine,  as  a  king  going  to 
war,  whether  he  dare  attack  the  stronger  force  of  the 
enemy  and  not  be  forced  to  make  peace  on  the  enemy's 
terms.  Unless  a  man  were  willing  to  renounce  all 
that  he  had,  he  could  not  enlist  for  the  attack  upon 
ecclesiasticism  and  orthodoxy. 

Salt  was  good,  but  if  the  saltness  should  be  lost 
before  it  was  needed  for  use,  it  was  worth  less  than 
nothing.  So  enthusiasm  was  good,  but,  if  it  gave  out 
at  the  critical  moment,  its  weak  possessor  would 
become  an  obstacle  to  victory. 

Luke  XV,  i-io;  Matt,  xmii^  12-14 

The  scribes  and  Pharisees  must  have  been  shocked 
many  times  at  seeing  Jesus  on  friendly  terms  with  the 
common  people  who  did  not  keep  the  law  and  whom 
they  imagined  were  rejected  by  God,  because  they 
were  despised  by  them. 


234  The  Historic  Jesus 

On  one  occasion  Jesus  told  a  parable  to  show  how 
mistaken  they  were  and  how  perfectly  natural  it  was 
for  God  to  be  interested  in  every  individual.  Any 
man  who  had  a  hundred  sheep  would  leave  the  ninety 
and  nine  and  go  in  search  of  one  that  was  lost,  until 
he  found  it.  And,  when  he  brought  it  home,  he  would 
expect  his  friends  and  neighbours  to  rejoice  with  him 
that  the  lost  was  found.  But  a  man  was  worth  more 
than  a  sheep  and  God  must  be  proportionately  glad 
when  a  wanderer  returned  to  the  divine  household, 
while  joy  would  spread  among  the  hosts  of  heaven 
that  a  lost  soul  had  been  found.  It  was  wonderful 
teaching,  then  heard  for  the  first  time,  the  intrinsic 
value  of  the  individual  human  soul.  According  to  the 
Pharisees  a  man  had  no  intrinsic  value,  but  acquired 
an  artificial  value  by  his  acquaintance  with  the  subtle- 
ties of  an  intricate  law  and  by  making  his  life  an 
elaborate  mechanism  of  observances.  Jesus  taught 
that  every  man,  because  he  was  a  man,  belonged  to  the 
divine  household  and  was  entitled  to  its  care,  protection, 
comfort,  and  joy.  If  he  wandered  away  into  barren, 
unhealthy,  dangerous  places,  God  was  interested  in 
bringing  him  back,  because  he  was  a  man  and  had  the 
making  of  a  man  in  him.  This  was  his  defence  for  his 
friendliness  to?- -the  common  people.  He  was  acting 
as  he  was  sure  God  would  act,  and  this  interpretation 
by  him  of  the  divine  attitude  toward  humanity  has 
become  more  and  more,  as  the  centuries  have  gone 
by,  one  of  the  great  moral  forces  working  for  the 
emancipation,  education,  and  elevation  of  the  human 
race. 

Jesus  illustrated  the  same  truth  in  the  story  of  a 
lost  coin.  As  the  women  of  a  neighbourhood  would 
congratulate  the  one  of  their  number  who  had  found 


Jesus  on  the  Way  to  Jerusalem        235 

a  lost  coin,  so  there  would  be  joy  throughout  the 
spiritual  world  over  the  finding  of  a  lost  soul  and  so 
much  the  greater  as  a  soul,  with  its  infinite  possibilities 
of  growth,  surpasses  the  value  of  a  coin. 

Luke  XV,  11-32 

The  parable  of  the  prodigal  son  is  the  greatest  of  the 
parables  of  Jesus.  It  was  not  in  the  soiurce  from  which 
Mark  drew  the  materials  for  his  Gospel  and  was  after- 
wards omitted  by  Matthew,  because  it  was  contrary 
to  the  pretensions  of  ecclesiasticism  which  were 
growing  strong  in  his  day.  We  are  thus  indebted  to 
Luke  only  for  its  preservation.  As  the  preceding 
parables  had  shown  that  God,  on  account  of  his  interest 
in  every  man,  would  natiu-ally  seek  to  bring  back  the 
lost,  this  shows  what  must  be  the  attitude  of  God 
toward  a  man  who  returned  on  his  own  initiative. 

The  prodigal  son,  receiving  his  share  of  the  inheritance 
and  wandering  away  into  a  foreign  land,  had  wasted 
his  substance  in  riotous  living  and  had  fallen  into 
poverty  and  wretchedness.  In  the  depth  of  his  misery, 
he  had  come  to  himself.  It  would  be  better  to  be  a 
slave,  under  the  care  and  protection  of  his  father,  than 
to  endure  his  present  hopeless  distress.  He  would  go 
to  his  father  and  beg  to  be  taken  back  as  a  slave. 
But  the  father  had  loved  him  and  thought  of  him  all 
the  time,  had  hoped  for  his  return,  was  looking  for  him, 
and  saw  him  coming,  pitied  him  in  his  distress,  and 
was  full  of  joy  at  his  return.  He  did  not  listen  to  his 
talk  about  unworthiness.  It  was  his  son  who  had 
come  home  and  it  was  therefore  a  time  for  rejoicing. 
Away  with  his  wretched  clothes.  "Bring  forth  the 
best  robe  and  put  it  on  him, "  a  ring  on  his  hand  and 


236  The  Historic  Jesus 

shoes  on  his  feet.  Kill  the  fatted  calf  and  "let  us  eat 
and  be  merry,  for  this  my  son  was  dead  and  is  alive 
again;  he  was  lost  and  is  found."  This  is  the  greatest 
teaching  concerning  the  attitude  of  God  to  man  which 
the  world  ever  had.  The  divine  heart  is  like  the  human 
heart,  when  natural  and  unperverted,  and  God  acts 
as  a  whole-souled,  genuine,  loving  human  father  would 
act  under  like  circumstances,  for  the  human  heart  in 
its  best  instincts  is  a  manifestation  of  the  divine  heart 
and  is  therefore  a  real  revelation  of  God.  Thus  Jesus 
was  a  real  revealer  of  God  to  men  for  he  was  sure  that 
his  intuitions  were  true  and  that  the  motives  which  he 
found  in  his  own  heart  were  identical  with  the  motives 
of  the  heart  of  God. 

The  Pharisees,  who  listened  to  this  wonderful  story, 
must  have  been  shocked  and  irritated  beyond  all  meas- 
ure. They  could  not  imagine  the  relationship  between 
God  and  men  as  natural  and  moral.  It  seemed  to 
them  that  it  must  be  royal,  judicial,  and  legal.  There 
must  be  a  coiirt,  with  laws,  penalties,  and  satisfactions. 
Every  transgression  entailed  a  penalty,  which  could 
not  be  removed  except  in  the  way  which  they  imagined 
God  himself  had  provided,  by  the  prescribed  sacrifice 
offered  through  the  duly  authorised  priest.  If  this 
teaching  of  Jes;  is  should  spread  among  the  people,  that 
God  would  forgive  any  sinner  who  came  to  himself 
and  amended  his  life,  the  whole  Jewish  reUgion  would 
be  swept  away,  the  temple,  the  priests,  the  sacrifices 
all  abolished.  It  was  preposterous  and,  not  long  after- 
ward, the  only  charge  said  to  have  been  brought 
against  Jesus  at  his  trial  was  that  he  had  foretold  the 
destruction  of  the  temple.  The  Pharisees  were  entirely 
right  in  their  deduction  from  his  teaching,  for  the 
parable  of  the   prodigal  son  is  the  protest   of  Jesus 


Jesus  on  the  Way  to  Jerusalem        237 

against  all  kinds  of  priests,  every  variety  of  priest- 
craft and  every  theory  of  atonement  which  the  ignor- 
ance, the  speculations,  or  the  fears  of  mankind  have 
devised,  and  so  long  as  the  story  is  read,  so  long  may 
faith  be  strong  that  it  will  eventually  bear  its  inevitable 
fruit  in  sweeping  away  every  barrier  which  intervenes 
between  the  repentant  soul  of  man  and  its  divine 
Father. 

It  is  quite  probable  that  the  second  part  of  the  para- 
ble was  a  later  addition  by  Jesus  himself  in  reply  to 
criticism  and  in  justification  of  his  teaching  concerning 
the  attitude  of  God.  Those  who  had  been  accustomed 
to  think  of  religion  as  a  set  of  rules  and  conformities 
would  naturally  raise  the  objection  that  the  older  son 
had  not  received  due  consideration  in  that  so  much  was 
made  of  the  returning  prodigal,  but  Jesus  assured 
them  that,  on  the  contrary,  the  older  son  ought  to 
have  been  as  glad  as  the  Father,  because  his  brother 
who  had  been  dead  was  alive  again.  The  whole 
parable  has  been  justly  called  "the  grandest  defence 
of  the  religion  of  Jesus"  (Gunkel).  There  is  no 
escape  from  its  teaching.  God  does  not  forgive  sins 
on  account  of  the  death  of  Jesus,  nor  by  reason  of  any 
kind  of  atonement,  or  sacrifice,  nor  as  a  reward  for 
holding  "right  views"  about  anything,  but  simply 
because  it  is  his  nature  to  forgive  every  one  who  comes 
to  himself  and  returns  to  his  love  and  care.  Any  other 
teaching  is  contrary  to  the  religion  of  Jesus. 

Luke  xvi,  i-ij 

The  parable  of  the  rich  man  and  the  steward  is  given 
by  Luke  only.  It  was  part  of  the  special  training  of  the 
disciples  and,  Hke  all  parables,  was  intended  to  illus- 


238  The  Historic  Jesus 

trate  a  single  point.  If  one  attempts  to  find  allegories 
in  it,  it  can  be  made  to  mean  any  amount  of  irrelevant 
things.  The  point  was  that  the  disciples  must  use  as 
much  intelligence  and  practical  common-sense  in 
dealing  with  the  moral  treasures  which  had  been  com- 
mitted to  them  as  shrewd  and  successful  business  men 
used  in  the  management  of  their  affairs.  They  were 
more  practical,  wiser,  than  the  children  of  light,  but 
it  ought  not  to  be  so.  Therefore,  Jesus  bid  his  dis- 
ciples copy  the  methods  of  the  practical  people. 
"Make  to  yourselves  friends  of  the  mammon  of  un- 
righteousness," cultivate  real  sympathy  and  bene- 
ficence as  the  ordinary,  practical  people  make  use  of 
their  coimterfeits  for  selfish  ends,  so  that,  when  the 
end  comes,  you  may  be  found  to  be  worthy  citizens 
for  the  Kingdom  of  God. 

Luke  adds  some  reflections  of  his  own  and  fragments 
of  conversation  from  other  connections,  which  have 
nothing  to  do  with  this  parable. 

Luke  xvi,  14-18 

The  mention  of  money  made  this  seem  to  Luke  a 
good  place  to  record  one  of  the  many  conflicts  with  the 
Pharisees,  wh(.  were  lovers  of  money,  and  yet  the 
controversy  here  given  has  nothing  to  do  with  money. 
The  frequent  showing  up  in  public  of  the  unreality 
and  hypocrisy  of  the  Pharisees  constantly  fed  the 
flames  of  their  hostility  to  Jesus.  In  this  account  he 
says  to  them :  You  are  the  people  who  pretend  to  be 
good;  but  God  knows  your  hearts;  for  that  which  is 
highly  esteemed  among  men  is  an  abomination  in  the 
sight  of  God.  This  is  not  the  "meek  and  gentle" 
Jesus  of  popular  imagination,  but  the  enthusiastic  and 


Jesus  on  the  Way  to  Jerusalem        239 

fearless  reformer.  They  had  no  doubt  accused  him 
of  teaching  men  to  break  the  law,  but  he  turns  upon 
them  with  the  frequent  accusation  that  they  neither 
knew  it,  nor  kept  it  themselves.  The  law,  he  told 
them,  had  lasted  until  John  and  now  the  Gospel  was 
taking  its  place  and  yet  the  Gospel  was  not  an  abroga- 
tion, but  a  fulfilment  of  the  law,  because  it  recognised 
its  imderlying  and  eternal  principles  and  therefore  the 
law  would  last  forever.  For  instance,  he  said:  "Every- 
one that  putteth  away  his  wife  and  marrieth  another 
committeth  adultery;  and  he  that  marrieth  one  that  is 
put  away  from  her  husband  committeth  adultery." 
The  facility  of  divorce  was  precisely  what  the  law 
allowed,  but  Jesus  taught  that  in  this  respect  the 
Jewish  law  was  contrary  to  the  law  of  nature,  which  is 
the  law  of  God.  Therefore  he  was  teaching  men  to 
keep  the  law  by  fulfilling  its  spirit,  instead  of  teaching 
them  as  they  did  to  take  advantage  of  its  letter  and  so  to 
break  the  real  law  of  God,  which  was  the  law  of  nature. 

Luke  xvi,  IQ-31 

The  story  of  the  rich  man  and  Lazarus  is  simply  a 
story  and  not  a  parable  and  can  hardly  have  originated 
with  Jesus,  but  must  have  been  a  popular  story,  from 
which  the  suffering  poor  derived  comfort.  In  a  future 
world  the  roles  would  be  reversed.  The  rich  would  be 
punished,  because  they  had  had  their  good  things  in  this 
world,  and  the  poor  rewarded,  because  they  had  been 
miserable  here.  This  is  about  the  way  in  which  the 
suffering  poor,  with  undeveloped  moral  natures,  would 
interpret  a  future  life,  but  with  Jesus  the  results  of 
life  always  depended  upon  character  and  not  upon 
material  conditions  and  he  never  could  have  used,  even 


240  The  Historic  Jesus 

as  an  illustration,  anything  so  entirely  unmoral  as  this 
story.  Its  only  interest  for  us,  therefore,  is  that  it 
reflects  the  popular  notions  of  the  common  people 
among  the  Jews  in  his  day. 

Luke  adds  to  the  original  story,  which  ends  with 
verse  25,  an  allegory  about  the  man  with  five  brothers, 
who  begs  that  Lazarus  may  be  sent  to  warn  his  brothers 
lest  they  come  into  the  place  of  torment,  but  Abraham 
declines  on  the  ground  that,  if  they  do  not  believe 
Moses  and  the  prophets,  they  would  not  believe,  though 
one  should  go  to  them  from  the  dead.  This  can  refer 
only  to  the  unbelief  of  the  Gospel  by  the  Jewish  people, 
notwithstanding  the  reported  resurrection  of  Jesus 
and,  naturally,  the  allegory  did  not  originate  with  him. 
Many  years  later  the  author  of  the  foiirth  Gospel 
related  the  actual  return  of  Lazarus  from  the  dead. 
Thus  we  have  all  the  steps  of  an  interesting  process, 
first  a  popular  legend  made  into  an  apparent  parable, 
then  this  parable  enlarged  into  an  allegory  and,  finally, 
the  allegory  transformed  into  a  miracle  (Pfleiderer.) 
The  reference  to  Moses  and  the  Prophets,  as  affording 
sufficient  warning  against  the  possibility  of  torment  in  a 
future  life,  is  an  evidence  of  the  popular  ignorance  of  the 
Jewish  people;  for  the  Hebrew  Scriptiu"es  contain  not 
the  most  remote  suggestion  concerning  a  future  hfe. 
All  such  beliefs  came  from  the  late  apocalyptic  Htera- 
ture,  which  had  come  to  be  included  under  the  term 
"Moses  and  the  Prophets,"  in  entire  ignorance  of  its 
origin. 

Luke  xvii,  i-io 

Several  fragments  of  the  training  of  the  disciples 
are  gathered  into  a  few  verses.     In  the  early  daj'^s  Jesus 


Jesus  on  the  Way  to  Jerusalem        241 

had  undoubtedly  had  a  large  following  in  Galilee,  but 
multitudes  had  fallen  away,  owing  to  the  active  hos- 
tiHty  of  the  Pharisees,  and  Jesus  no  doubt  often  told 
his  disciples  that  the  punishment  of  the  men  who  had 
caused  the  little  people,  who  had  believed  him,  to 
stumble,  would  be  dreadful  at  the  judgment  which 
would  precede  the  establishment  of  the  Kingdom.  It 
would  be  better  for  those  men  to  be  drowned  at  once 
in  the  Lake  of  Galilee. 

He  urged  the  disciples  to  learn  to  forgive  and  often 
tried  to  impress  upon  them  the  truth  that  they  could 
not  expect  God  to  forgive  them,  until  they  had  learned 
to  forgive  others. 

No  doubt  the  disciples,  often  seeing  what  a  power 
faith  was  in  the  life  of  Jesus,  desired  a  like  power,  but, 
according  to  the  narrative,  he  did  not  tell  them  how  it 
might  be  acquired  or  cultivated,  but  merely  gave  them 
an  illustration  of  how  limitless  it  was.  Jesus  was 
certainly  conscious  of  such  a  power  of  divine  co-opera- 
tion that  it  seemed  to  him  virtually  unbounded,  but 
it  was  a  power  which  could  be  acquired  only  by 
individual  experience  and  could  not  be  taught. 

The  conclusion  from  the  story  of  the  slave  that,  after 
we  have  done  our  best,  we  must  still  acknowledge  our- 
selves unprofitable  servants,  sounds  more  like  the 
teaching  of  Paiil  than  of  Jesus,  for,  while  he  taught  that 
service  was  the  normal  interpretation  of  life,  he  never 
taught  that  self -depreciation  was  a  duty. 

Luke  xvii,  ii-iQ 

If  Jesus  did  not  go  through  Samaria  on  his  way  to 
Jerusalem  but  through  Perea,  then  the  story  of  the 
ten  lepers  did  not  refer  to  an  actual  event,  but  \^'as 


242  The  Historic  Jesus 

originally  a  parable  which  Jesus  told  in  Jerusalem,  the 
point  of  which  would  be  perfectly  evident.  The  Jews 
did  not  appreciate  his  message  enough  to  thank  God 
for  it,  whereas  even  a  Samaritan,  whom  they  despised, 
would  do  better.  The  application  would  be  evident 
and  effective. 

Luke  xvii,  20-37 

The  answer  of  Jesus,  which  Luke  gives,  to  the 
question  of  the  Pharisees  as  to  when  the  Kingdom  of 
God  would  come  has  caused  more  perplexity  and  given 
rise  to  more  controversy  than  almost  anything  else 
in  the  Gospels. 

It  is  perfectly  evident,  from  the  study  of  them  as  a 
whole  that  Jesus  shared  the  popular  belief  that  the 
Kingdom  of  God  meant  the  establishment  of  God's 
personal  sovereignty  over  the  Jewish  people  and  that  he 
derived  his  overwhelming  enthusiasm  from  his  belief 
that  the  great  catastrophe  would  happen  suddenly  and 
soon.  He  could  not,  therefore,  have  taught  the  entirely 
contradictory  belief  that  the  Kingdom  was  to  be  a 
gradual  and  invisible  growth  in  human  hearts  and  it 
is  necessary  to  find  some  way  to  reconcile  this  apparent 
contradiction  m  his  teaching.  Did  he  say — the  King- 
dom of  God  is  in  the  midst  of  you,  or  the  Kingdom  of 
God  is  within  you?  The  authorities  disagree  as  to  how 
to  translate  the  Greek  and  as  to  what  must  have  been 
the  Aramaic  original.  If  we  are  to  accept  the  trans- 
lation— the  Kingdom  of  God  is  in  the  midst  of  you — 
it  would  agree  with  his  frequent  conclusion  that  the 
cures  which  he  wrought  were  evidences  that  the  power 
of  Satan  was  in  process  of  breaking  and,  therefore, 
that  the  Kingdom  was  so  near  that  it  was  virtually 


Jesus  on  the  Way  to  Jerusalem       243 

already  in  their  midst.  His  answer  to  the  Pharisees 
would  be,  therefore,  that  the  Kingdom  was  very  near, 
because  its  signs  were  so  abundant  that  it  might  be 
said  to  be  already  in  their  midst. 

If  we  take  the  other  rendering,  which  is  much  the 
better  one, — the  Kingdom  of  God  is  within  you — it 
can  mean  only  that  those,  who  were  already  virtually 
living  its  life,  had  the  consciousness  within  themselves 
that  it  must  be  near  at  hand;  but  the  Pharisees,  to 
whom  Jesus  was  talking,  were  not  li\4ng  the  life  of  the 
Klingdom  and  therefore  had  no  means  of  knowing  how 
near  it  was.  With  either  rendering  the  answer  of 
Jesus  to  the  question  when  the  Kingdom  was  coming 
— was  that  it  was  coming  very  soon  and  we  may  be 
perfectly  sure  that  he  did  not  for  a  moment  mean  to 
imply  that  the  Kingdom  was  altogether  a  matter  of 
feeling,  conviction,  and  experience,  and  not  an  external 
reality,  thus  contradicting  all  his  teaching;  for,  im- 
mediately after  this  conversation,  Luke  represents  him 
as  impressing  upon  the  disciples  that  the  coming  of  the 
Kingdom  woiild  be  as  sudden  and  as  real  "as  the  light- 
ning, when  it  Ughteneth  out  of  the  one  part  under  the 
heaven,  shineth  unto  the  other  part  under  heaven." 
While  the  rest  of  this  passage  represents  the  conditions 
of  later  days  and  did  not  originate  with  Jesus,  never- 
theless the  behef  that  the  Kingdom  would  come  soon 
and  must  come  suddenly  was  one  of  the  fixed  beliefs 
which  the  early  Christians  inherited  from  him  and  the 
one  on  which  they  most  depended  to  keep  them  patient 
and  brave  while  waiting  for  the  Kingdom,  the  coming 
of  which  seemed  to  be  delayed. 

This  chapter,  from  the  22nd  verse  to  the  end,  is 
interesting  as  an  illustration  of  the  transformation, 
which  the  teaching  of  Jesus  tmderwent  at  the  hands 


244  The  Historic  Jesus 

of  the  earliest  Christian  generations.  It  is  no  longer 
God,  who  is  coming  to  establish  his  Kingdom,  but 
Jesus,  who  is  coming  back  as  the  heavenly  Messiah  to 
establish  his  own  Kingdom.  His  death  was  construed 
as  a  necessity,  as  evidence  of  submission  to  the  divine 
will  and  the  ground  of  his  elevation  to  his  high  estate. 

It  would  be  a  pity  to  become  anxious,  or  to  let  belief 
grow  weak,  because  his  return  was  delayed,  or  to  be 
beguiled  by  any  false  reports  concerning  it,  because 
it  would  be  as  sudden  and  as  evident  as  the  lightning 
and  as  sure  as  the  catastrophes  about  which  they 
read  in  their  Scriptures,  the  flood  which  drowned  the 
world  in  Noah's  time  and  the  fire  and  brimstone  which 
caused  such  destruction  at  Sodom,  The  return  of 
Jesus  would  be  as  sudden  as  those  ancient  supposed 
events  and,  like  them,  his  coming  would  bring  ven- 
geance and  destruction  to  all  but  the  Christians.  So 
sudden  would  it  be  that  there  would  be  no  time  to  go 
down  from  the  housetop  or  to  return  home  from  the 
field.  Of  two  in  one  bed,  one  would  be  taken  and  the 
other  left;  of  two  women  grinding  together,  one  would 
be  taken  and  the  other  left.  Those  who  were  taken 
would  be  hurried  away  to  judgment  and  destruction 
and  their  bodies  abandoned  to  the  birds  of  prey,  while 
those  who  wei  3  left  would  be  ready  for  the  establishment 
of  the  Kingdom  of  the  Messiah. 

Such  were  the  beliefs  of  the  early  Christians.  The 
proportion  of  the  teaching  of  Jesus  which  they  con- 
tained was  very  small.  He  recognised  the  necessity 
of  a  judgment  in  order  to  make  the  world  a  proper 
place  for  a  divine  Kingdom,  but  his  heart  was  filled 
with  the  anticipated  joy  of  the  Kingdom,  while  his 
constant  effort  was  to  win  men  to  the  love  of  better 
things  and  not  to  frighten  them  into  some  external 


Jesus  on  the  Way  to  Jerusalem       245 

conformity.  The  early  Christians,  however,  were  often 
of  a  different  spirit  and,  feeHng  secure  as  to  their 
own  future  and  suffering  many  things  from  their 
enemies,  very  early  developed  the  imfortimate  habit 
of  gloating  over  the  prospective  fate  of  the  wicked. 

Luke  xviii,  1-8 

Jesus  undoubtedly  tried  to  teach  his  disciples  the 
nature  of  prayer,  but  apparently  without  much  success. 

With  him  prayer  was  a  permanent  spiritual  attitude, 
the  consciousness  of  dependence  upon  and  co-operation 
with  God,  with  them  it  was  the  repetition  of  fixed  form- 
ulas. Jesus  certainly  never  represented  God  as  yielding 
somewhat  ungraciously  to  persistent  teasing,  nor  did  he 
ever  teach  that  the  cry  for  vengeance  was  a  proper 
expression  of  prayer.  This  supposed  teaching  is  a 
reflection  of  conditions  toward  the  end  of  the  first 
century,  when  the  Christians  had  had  long  experience 
of  persecution  and  in  their  desperation  were  Hterally 
crying  for  vengeance  and  when,  in  consequence  of 
defections  from  their  ranks,  some  had  begun  to  wonder 
whether,  when  Jesus  did  come  back,  as  they  expected 
him  to  do,  he  would  find  any  faith  left.  He  never 
anticipated  these  conditions,  but  expected  the  Kingdom 
of  God  to  come,  at  least  a  generation  before  Luke  wrote 
his    Gospel. 

Luke  xviii,  p-14 

It  is  remarkable  that  Luke  did  not  see  the  violent 
contrast  between  what  is  evidently  part  of  the  teaching 
of  Jesus  concerning  prayer,  as  illustrated  by  the  story 
of  the  Pharisee  and  the  publican  and  the  preceding 
prayer  for  vengeance.     This  story  properly  belongs  to 


246  The  Historic  Jesus 

the  days  in  Jerusalem,  because  it  was  a  custom  of  the 
Pharisees  to  go  to  the  temple  to  pray.  Jesus  illustrates 
the  mode  and  spirit  of  Pharisaic  prayer.  With  them 
every  religious  observance,  and  all  the  keeping  of  the 
law,  constituted  meritorious  acts,  which  gave  them  a 
claim  to  reward  from  God. 

Jesus  represents  their  prayers  as  a  rehearsal  of  their 
claims,  while,  over  against  this  ordinary  Jewish  type,  he 
portrays  one  of  the  despised  tax-collectors,  who  knew 
that  he  had  failed  in  many  of  his  duties  and  needed  the 
forgiveness  of  God.  This  was  the  sort  of  man  who 
Jesus  said  would  go  out  of  the  temple  a  better  man  than 
the  other.  It  was  a  criticism  of  the  whole  attitude  of 
the  Jewish  religion  towards  God  and  in  harmony  with 
his  constant  teaching  that  God  forgave  sinners  who 
repented. 

The  End  of  Luke's  Insertion. 

§  XLIX:  Mark  x,  1-12;  Matt.  xix.  i-Q 

The  earlier  tradition,  as  recorded  in  Mark's  Gospel, 
was  that  Jesus  went  to  Jerusalem  by  way  of  Persea  and 
not  through  Samaria.  The  two  accounts  coalesce  again 
at  Jericho,  but,  as  already  stated,  if  Jesus  had  gone 
through  Samaria,  he  would  hardly  have  made  the  detour 
necessary  to  get  to  Jericho.  In  saying  that  "the 
multitude  came  together  unto  him  again, "  there  would 
seem  to  be  a  possible  suggestion  of  earlier  visits  of 
Jesus  to  Judaea,  although  there  is  no  mention  of  any 
in  the  Synoptic  Gospels.  Jesus  had  protested  seriously 
against  the  common  custom  of  divorce  among  the  Jews, 
and  the  Pharisees,  in  asking  their  question,  undoubted- 
ly expected  to  show  that  his  teaching  was  contrary  to 


Jesus  on  the  Way  to  Jerusalem       247 

the  law,  but  Jesus  answered  them  by  the  use  of  their 
own  methods. 

Moses,  they  said,  allowed  divorce,  to  which  Jesus  re- 
plied, certainly,  so  he  did,  but  it  was  a  concession  to  the 
hardness  of  your  hearts  and  you  may  read,  also  in 
the  teaching  of  Moses,  in  the  book  of  Genesis,  that  in 
the  beginning  it  was  not  so,  but  that  since  God  created 
sexes  it  was  evidently  his  intention  that  man  and  wife 
should  be  one  flesh,  therefore,  what  he  had  joined 
together,  man  ought  not  to  put  asunder.  On  the 
premises,  which  both  Jesus  and  the  Pharisees  accepted 
there  was  no  escaping  from  this  argument  that  the 
original  law  could  not  be  abrogated  by  a  later  conces- 
sion. So  far  as  we  are  concerned  the  fundamental 
principle,  as  laid  down  by  Jesus,  that  marriage  is 
grounded  in  nature  and  is  therefore  a  law  of  God  which 
ought  not  to  be  broken,  remains  absolutely  true, 
although  we  no  longer  believe,  as  he  and  his  opponents 
did,  that  the  Pentateuch  contains  a  code  of  divine  law. 
The  disciples,  accustomed  to  Jewish  laxity  in  divorce, 
found  the  teaching  of  Jesus  severe  and  asked  him  about 
it  again.  He  told  them,  if  a  man  divorced  his  wife  and 
married  another,  he  committed  adultery  and,  must 
have  added  that,  if  she,  who  is  divorced  marries  another, 
she  commits  adultery.  Two  early  manuscripts  give 
it  in  this  way,  whereas,  as  given  in  our  received  text — 
"If  she  herself  shall  put  away  her  husband,  and  marry 
another,  she  committeth  adultery" — is  impossible,  for 
this  was  in  accordance  with  Roman  law,  but  not  with 
Jewish  law.  Either  Mark,  more  accustomed  to  Roman 
law,  did  not  know  that  the  Jewish  law  was  different,  or 
else  some  one  altered  his  original  text  to  make  it  cover 
the  provisions  of  Roman  law. 

Matthew  introduces  one  possible  cause  for  divorce, 


248  The  Historic  Jesus 

of  which  Luke  makes  no  mention,  and  apparently  with 
permission  to  marry  again.  Which  is  right  we  cannot 
tell,  but  it  would  hardly  seem  that  the  later  tradition 
could  have  invented  the  exception.  It  needs  to  be 
borne  in  mind  that  Jesus  was  not  attempting  to  legis- 
late, as  if  he  had  been  the  Messiah,  but  was  stating  his 
strong  personal  conviction  which  had  grown  out  of  his 
clear  intuitions  as  to  right  and  wrong  and  which  he 
thought  was  established  by  divine  authority  in  the 
Book  of  Genesis  and  in  nature. 

Matthew  adds  some  further  conversation  on  this 
subject,  which  Luke  omits. 

Matt,  xix,  10-12 

The  disciples  objected  that,  if  things  were  so  serious, 
if  a  man  might  not  divorce  his  wife  and  marry  another 
whenever  he  pleased,  one  might  as  well  not  marry  at 
all.  This  would  have  been  the  ordinary  Jewish  criti- 
cism of  the  position  taken  by  Jesus.  But  Jesus  said, 
No!  one  ought  to  marry  and,  if  trouble  came,  the 
strength  of  conviction  as  to  what  was  right  would 
become  a  power  for  self-control.  This  is  the  evident 
meaning  of  the  words:  "All  men  cannot  receive  this 
saying,  but  th^y  to  whom  it  is  given." 

He  then  added  that  there  were  only  three  classes 
of  men  who  might  not  marry.  Some  were  incapacita- 
ted by  nature,  others  by  man,  while  there  were  others 
who  found  it  necessary  to  refrain  from  marriage,  because 
their  lives  were  consecrated  to  a  great  purpose  with 
which  marriage  would  interfere.  They  had  made 
themselves  eunuchs  for  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven's  sake. 
He  was  thinking  of  his  own  case.  No  one  would  have 
enjoyed  a  home,  a  wife,  and  children  more  than  he. 


Jesus  on  the  Way  to  Jerusalem        249 

He  had  a  great  love  of  children  and  a  sincere  esteem  for 
women,  which  was  entirely  un-Jewish,  putting  them  upon 
an  equality  with  men,  while  the  Jews  thought  that 
they  had  no  souls;  but  he  had  made  all  the  sacrifices, 
including  a  home,  a  wife,  and  a  family.  He  had  made 
himself  a  etmuch  for  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven's  sake 
and  had  required  of  those  who  followed  him  to  Jerusa- 
lem the  same  sacrifices,  of  such  as  were  married  the 
abandonment  of  wife  and  children,  that  they  might 
be  unfettered  in  their  great  endeavour  to  prepare  the 
Jewish  people  for  the  Kingdom  of  God.  Matthew 
would  never  have  inserted  this  conversation  in  his 
Gospel  if  he  had  understood  it;  but,  when  he  wrote, 
the  Jewish  theory  of  good  works,  as  establishing  a 
credit  account  with  God,  was  in  full  vigour  among  the 
Christians,  while  asceticism  was  already  tmdermining 
morality  with  its  theory  that  the  sacrifices  which  it 
entailed  entitled  one  to  interest  infinitely  compounded 
in  the  world  to  come. 

With  no  spirituality  and  no  devotion  to  high  ideals 
it  was  easy  to  construe  the  words  of  Jesus  into  the 
promise  of  a  great  reward  in  the  next  world,  in  return 
for  celibacy  in  this  world. 

§  L:  Mark  x,  13-16;  Lukexviii,  13-17 J  Matt,  xix,  13-15 

Jesus  loved  the  children  and  the  account  follows 
naturally  after  the  record  of  his  views  as  to  the  sanctity 
of  marriage.  The  disciples  thought  that  the  children 
were  in  the  way  and  would  have  kept  them  at  a  dis- 
tance, but  Jesus  not  only  welcomed  them,  but  found  in 
them  an  illustration  for  some  of  his  greatest  teaching. 
Let  them  come,  he  said,  for  they  are  like  the  citizens 
of  the  Kingdom  of  God.     If  any  one  does  not  receive 


250  The  Historic  Jesus 

the  Kingdom  as  a  little  child,  he  will  not  enter  therein. 
The  children  were  unspoiled  by  the  conventionalities 
of  life,  uncontaminated  by  its  vices.  With  them 
speculation  had  not  frozen  into  dogma,  nor  reHgion 
become  a  mechanism  of  observances.  They  were 
natural  and  spontaneous,  trustful  and  affectionate. 
Thus  they  illustrated  true  religion  and  their  natural 
attitude  towards  every  one  was  the  normal  attitude  of 
every  one  towards  God.  Men  needed  to  get  away  from 
their  theories  and  conformities,  to  learn  to  love  God, 
to  trust  him,  to  work  with  him.  This  was  the  only 
fitness  for  his  Kingdom.  And  then  the  Kingdom  was  a 
free  gift.  It  could  not  be  earned  or  deserved  and  men 
must  learn  to  receive  it  as  children  took  gifts,  with 
gratitude  and  joy.  It  was  wonderful  teaching  and  it 
still  stands  as  a  rebuke  and  invitation  to  the  world. 
Mark  says  that  Jesus  took  the  children  in  his  arms 
and  blessed  them.  This  was  afterwards  omitted  by 
both  Luke  and  Matthew,  because  by  the  time  they 
wrote,  the  evidence  of  a  real  human  affection  on  the 
part  of  Jesus  had  become  incompatible  with  the  ideas 
of  a  superhuman  Christ. 

§  LI:  Mark  x,  iy-31;  Luke  xviii,  18-jo;  Matt,  xix,  16-30 
%i 

It  is  related  that  on  the  way  to  Jericho  a  man  came 
running  and  knelt  before  Jesus  and  asked  him,  "Good 
Master,  what  shall  I  do  that  I  may  inherit  eternal 
life?"  and  that  Jesus  said  in  reply,  "  Why  callest  thou 
me  good?  there  is  none  good  but  one,  that  is  God," 
which  shows  that  it  was  as  far  as  possible  from  the  mind 
of  Jesus  to  think  of  himself  as  superhuman  or  to  put 
himself  in  any  respect  on  a  par  with  God.  This  declara- 
tion by  him  was  at  variance  with  the  theological  spec- 


Jesus  on  the  Way  to  Jerusalem       251 

ulatlons,  which  had  become  common  early  in  the  second 
century.  Matthew,  therefore,  changed  the  whole 
account  to  read,  "Master,  what  good  thing  shall  I  do, 
that  I  may  have  eternal  life?"  to  which  Jesus  is  repre- 
sented as  replying,  "Why  askest  thou  me  concerning 
that  which  is  good?  One  there  is,  who  is  good." 
Thus,  Matthew  made  Jesus  avoid  declining  the  attri- 
bute of  goodness.  The  authorised  English  version 
does  not  show  this  discrepancy,  for  the  King  James 
translators  altered  Matthew's  Gospel  to  make  it  con- 
form to  the  statements  in  those  of  Mark  and  Luke. 
The  translators  of  the  new  version  have  been  more 
honest,  but  the  churches  still  refuse  to  allow  the  use 
of  the  new  version. 

Jesus  referred  the  young  man  to  the  commandments, 
by  the  keeping  of  which  one  might  be  reasonably  sure 
of  admission  to  the  Kingdom  when  it  should  come. 
In  calling  attention  to  the  moral  law  and  saying  nothing 
about  the  ritual  and  ceremonial  law  he  emphasises 
once  more  his  constant  teaching  that  the  issues  of  life 
are  moral  and  depend  entirely  upon  character.  The 
young  man,  judging  from  his  enthusiasm  and  genuine- 
ness he  must  have  been  a  young  man,  declared  that  he 
had  always  led  a  moral  life.  He  was  evidently  sincere, 
honest,  and  wholesome  and  he  at  once  won  the  love  of 
Jesus,  to  whom  it  seemed  as  if  he  might  be  capable  of 
making  the  great  sacrifices  and  becoming  one  of  his 
assistants  in  preparing  the  Jewish  people  for  the  coming 
of  the  Kingdom  of  God.  He  therefore  said  to  him: 
"There  is  one  thing  more  that  you  might  do,"  for  the 
English  translation — "One  thing  thou  lackest"  is 
exceedingly  stupid  and  misleading.  He  had  already 
told  him  that  the  way  to  inherit  eternal  life  was  to  keep 
the  commandments  and  therefore  could  not  have  added 


252  The  Historic  Jesus 

that  there  was  yet  another  condition  not  included  in 
the  commandments;  but  there  was  one  thing  more 
that  he  might  do,  he  might  join  Jesus  and  the  disciples 
in  their  attack  upon  a  worn-out  religion  which  was 
keeping  people  out  of  the  Kingdom  of  God.  To  do  so 
he  would  have  to  do  what  they  had  done,  divest  him- 
self of  all  entanglements,  get  into  light  marching  order, 
and  bum  his  bridges.  He  would  have  to  sell  his  prop- 
erty and  give  away  the  proceeds  to  the  poor.  Then 
after  disposing  of  your  property,  Jesus  said,  "Come, 
follow  me,"  namely  to  Jerusalem.  Mark  inserts, 
"take  up  thy  cross,"  which  Luke  and  Matthew  very 
properly  omit,  because  Jesus  did  not  say  it.  An 
immeasurable  amount  of  misery  and  mischief  might 
have  been  saved,  if  Christian  people  had  had  intelli- 
gence enough  to  see  that  all  such  extreme  sacrifices  re- 
quired by  Jesus  had  reference  only  to  those  who  had 
the  necessary  enthusiasm  and  courage  to  enlist  for  the 
bold  and  dangerous  attack  upon  the  Jewish  religion. 
The  dulness  which  paralysed  the  possibiHty  of  any 
historical  consciousness,  and  therefore  let  men  imagine 
that  Jesus  was  laying  down  a  rule  for  Christian  life 
through  all  the  age-long  history  of  a  new  ecclesiasti- 
cism  of  which  he  never  dreamed,  filled  the  deserts  of 
the  Orient  with  swarms  of  fanatics  and  the  cloisters 
of  Europe  with  hordes  of  useless  monks  and  still 
demoralises  thousands  of  people  with  the  shocking 
notion  that  voluntary  poverty  is  the  highest  ideal  of 
life  and  rests  upon  the  authority  of  Jesus.  Let  us  get 
back  to  history  and  we  shall  see  that  all  these  extreme 
requirements  were  not  rules  of  life,  but  the  special 
equipment  for  a  crisis. 

The  early  Christians  lost  what  little  historical  con- 
sciousness they  might  have  had,  because,  from  their 


Jesus  on  the  Way  to  Jerusalem       253 

mistaken  zeal  in  attempting  to  prove  that  Jesus  was 
the  Messiah,  the  actual  facts  of  history  did  not  interest 
them,  while  they  misinterpreted  nearly  everything 
that  he  said  or  did.  Thus  they  very  early  forgot  what 
he  went  to  Jerusalem  for.  It  seemed  to  them  that  he 
went  there  to  be  killed,  in  order  that  he  might  become 
the  heavenly  Messiah.  Therefore,  if  they  found  in 
the  traditions  an  account  that  on  the  way  to  Jerusalem 
he  invited  a  man  to  follow  him,  it  seemed  to  them  to  be 
part  of  a  general  invitation  addressed  to  all  mankind 
and,  if,  along  with  the  invitation  to  follow,  they  foimd 
the  reqmrement  of  voluntary  poverty,  this  too  seemed 
to  them  to  be  a  general  rule  for  the  new  religion  which 
they  imagined  that  Jesus  was  founding.  As  regards 
the  facts,  Jesus  invited  certain  men  to  "follow"  him 
at  two  different  times  and  for  two  different  purposes. 
At  first  it  was  a  few  men  in  Galilee  who  were  invited 
to  follow  him  in  order  that  they  might  become  fishers 
of  men  in  the  towns  about  the  Lake  of  Galilee.  After- 
wards he  invited  the  same  men  and  others  to  "follow" 
him  to  Jerusalem  for  a  much  more  serious  struggle, 
attended  by  danger.  Other  people  he  did  not  think  of 
as  his  "followers,"  but  as  the  field  upon  which  he  and 
his  friends  were  sowing  good  seed,  some  of  which  would 
spring  up  and  bear  fruit  in  God's  own  time. 

Matthew's  Gospel  shows  that  the  iniquity  of  mis- 
construction was  already  fully  equipped  for  mischief 
in  his  time,  for  he  changed  the  original  words  of  Jesus 
into,  "if  thou  would  s't  be  perfect,  "  showing  that  men 
already  recognised  two  standards  of  conduct,  the  "mere 
conformity, "  by  means  of  which  one  might  gain  access 
to  heaven,  and  asceticism,  which  contained  the  counsels 
of  perfection  and  entitled  its  votaries  to  a  great  reward. 
Rome  still  teaches  the  double  standard  and  calls  no 


254  The  Historic  Jesus 

one  "religious"  except  monks  and  nuns,  but  the 
irreligious  interpretation  of  the  teaching  of  Jesus  is 
as  old  as  the  Christian  religion. 

Jesus  told  the  young  man  that  after  he  had  given 
away  his  property  his  treasure  would  be  in  heaven. 
Naturally,  for  his  heart  and  all  his  interests  would  be 
there  and  all  his  efforts  devoted  to  enlarging  its  citi- 
zenship. When  the  Kingdom  was  established  the 
young  man  would  be  provided  for;  and  yet  Jesus  was 
by  no  means  inviting  him  to  enter  into  a  speculation, 
to  siurender  his  property  now  in  the  hope  of  an  enor- 
mous reward  when  the  Kingdom  came,  but  trying  to 
awaken  his  faith  that,  in  freeing  himself  from  everything 
which  might  hinder  his  usefulness  to  the  Cause,  he  need 
have  no  anxiety  as  to  the  future.  The  young  man  was 
very  sorry  that  Jesus  had  said  this  and  went  away 
grieved,  because  he  was  rich.  Jesus  was  disappointed 
too,  for  he  had  taken  very  kindly  to  him  and  hoped 
to  have  him  for  a  helper.  He  turned  to  the  disciples 
and  said,  "How  hardly  will  they  that  have  riches  enter 
into  the  Kingdom  of  God."  They  misunderstood  him 
as  a  matter  of  course.  They  thought  him  to  mean  that 
hardly  any  rich  men  would  be  admitted  to  the  Kingdom 
of  Heaven  when  it  came,  simply  because  he  had  been 
rich,  and  to  this  day  many  Christians  who  have  no 
realisation  of  what  Jesus  meant  by  the  Kingdom  of 
God  imagine  that  he  taught  that  most  rich  men  would 
not  go  to  heaven  when  they  died.  But  Jesus  had 
already  told  the  young  man  that  he  would  inherit 
eternal  life,  because  he  had  always  led  a  moral  life. 
Always  and  everywhere  he  taught  that  the  results  of 
life  depended  upon  character,  without  regard  to  whether 
one  were  rich  or  poor,  and  it  is  idle  to  say  that  he  shared 
the  beliefs  of  the  Jewish  pietists  that  voluntary  poverty 


Jesus  on  the  Way  to  Jerusalem        255 

and  almsgiving  were  the  most  pleasing  virtues  in  the 
sight  of  God.  He  certainly  did  not  say  so  here,  nor 
suggest  anything  of  the  kind.  What  he  did  say  was 
that  it  was  difficult  to  persuade  a  rich  man  to  make 
the  sacrifices  necessary  to  join  him  in  the  supreme 
attempt  to  prepare  the  Jewish  people  for  the  coming  of 
the  Kingdom  of  God.  The  disciples,  taking  him  with 
hard  literalness,  were  astonished,  but  he  tried  to  make 
his  meaning  plain  by  saying,  "How  hard  it  is  for  them 
that  trust  in  riches  to  enter  into  the  Kingdom  of  God! 
It  is  easier  for  a  camel  to  go  through  the  eye  of  a  needle, 
than  for  a  rich  man  to  enter  into  the  Kingdom  of  God, " 
The  disciples  did  not  understand  him  any  better,  but 
exclaimed,  "Who  then  can  be  saved?"  to  which  Jesus 
replied  that  God  could  give  a  man  strength  to  make 
the  sacrifices  which  the  immediate  crisis  demanded. 
It  was  perfectly  natural  after  this  conversation  that 
Peter,  speaking  for  himself  and  the  others,  should 
remind  Jesus  of  what  they  had  given  up.  They  had 
abandoned  their  families,  their  property,  their  occupa- 
tions and  never  expected  to  return  to  the  same  condi- 
tions, for,  if  any  of  them  survived  to  get  back  to  Galilee, 
all  the  conditions  of  life  would  have  been  changed. 
The  Kingdom  would  have  come  and  everything  would 
be  upon  a  new  basis.  Jesus  assured  them  that  those 
who  had  left  house,  or  brethren,  or  sisters,  or  father, 
or  mother,  or  wife,  or  children,  or  lands,  because  they 
trusted  him,  or  because  they  were  devoted  to  the  Cause 
of  the  coming  Kingdom,  would  receive  a  himdredfold, 
now  in  this  time,  houses,  and  brethren,  and  sisters, 
and  mothers  and  children  and  lands,  and,  in  the  world 
to  come,  eternal  life.  This  was  the  actual  belief  of 
Jesus.  The  Kingdom  of  God  was  to  be  a  very  material 
reality,  a  regeneration  of  things  in  this  present  world. 


256  The  Historic  Jesus 

It  seemed  to  him  natural  and  inevitable  that  those 
who  had  believed  in  it  and  worked  for  it  should  have  a 
large  share  of  its  comforts  and  joys.  It  is  impossible 
that  he  added  the  words — with  persecutions — because 
they  would  be  entirely  out  of  keeping  with  his  antici- 
pations. The  words  must  have  been  added  by  some 
scribe,  in  later  days,  in  order  to  establish  some  appear- 
ance of  harmony  between  the  anticipations  of  Jesus 
and  the  experiences  of  the  Christians.  The  suggestion 
of  persecutions  is  incompatible  with  the  account  which 
Matthew  gives,  that  Jesus  told  the  twelve  apostles  that 
in  the  coming  regeneration  of  the  world  they  would 
sit  upon  twelve  thrones,  judging  the  twelve  tribes  of 
Israel.  In  the  original  account,  as  given  by  Mark,  the 
idea  of  reward  does  not  appear  and  Jesus  certainly 
never  talked  about  any  distribution  of  thrones  among 
his  disciples. 

In  the  redistribution  of  things  at  the  establishment 
of  the  Kingdom,  those  who  had  sacrificed  and  suffered 
for  it  would  naturally  have  a  large  share,  and  yet  their 
devotion  would  not  have  been  for  the  sake  of  reward, 
but  out  of  sincere  attachment  to  Jesus  and  his  Cause. 
The  common  Jewish  belief,  however,  that  every  good 
act  was  a  speculative  investment,  to  be  exorbitantly 
requited  by  God,  could  not  be  permanently  suppressed 
and  very  early  came  back  among  the  Christians  in  full 
force,  as  is  shown  in  Matthew's  Gospel.  He  represents 
Peter,  not  merely  as  suggesting  the  sacrifices,  which  he 
and  the  rest  had  made,  but  as  actually  asking  what 
they  were  going  to  get  in  return.  Thus  we  learn  that 
at  a  very  early  day  the  theory  that  good  works  consti- 
tuted a  claim  upon  God  was  one  of  the  pernicious  heri- 
tages which  Christianity  received  from  Judaism. 

The  conversation   closed  wdth  the  saying  of  Jesus. 


Jesus  on  the  Way  to  Jerusalem       257 

"Many  that  are  first  will  be  last;  and  the  last  first." 
Many  of  those  who  occupied  the  prominent  positions 
in  the  world  as  it  was  did  not  owe  them  to  character, 
while  many  of  the  upright,  faithful  people  led  obscure 
lives;  but  in  the  reconstructed  world  things  would  be 
reversed,  character  and  fitness  would  decide  position 
so  that  many  who  were  first  and  many  who  were  last 
now  would  change  places. 

§  LII:  Mark  x,  32-34;  Luke  xviiij  31-34;  Matt,  xx, 

17-19 

This  is  the  third  time  that  Jesus  is  represented  as 
telling  his  disciples  that  he  is  going  to  Jerusalem  to  be 
killed.  It  is  given  three  times,  because  it  was  the  most 
important  point  in  early  Christian  apologetics.  The 
Christians  were  sure  that  Jesus  was  the  Messiah,  but  a 
Messiah  who  should  suffer  and  die  was  as  far  as  possible 
from  Jewish  ideas.  The  Christians  could  not  hope 
to  win  converts  to  their  belief,  unless  they  could  give 
satisfactory  evidence  that  the  suffering  and  death  of 
Jesus  were  part  of  the  pre-ordained  role  of  the  Messiah 
and  the  necessary  prelude  to  his  elevation  to  the  posi- 
tion of  heavenly  Messiah  and  his  return  as  a  judging, 
avenging,  and  ruling  Messiah.  It  is  to  emphasise  this 
belief  that  the  supposed  prediction  by  him  of  his  suffer- 
ing, death,  and  resurrection  is  repeated  three  times; 
but  we  have  seen  already  and  shall  see  still  more  clearly 
that  the  disciples  were  totally  unprepared  for  his 
death  and  that  no  one  expected  a  resiurection,  which  is 
evidence  enough  that  these  supposed  predictions  are 
not  facts  of  history,  but  later  apologetics. 

It  is  certainly  probable  that  there  were  times  on  the 
wav  to  Jerusalem  when  Jesus  was  intensely  wrought 


258  The  Historic  Jesus 

up  and  suffered  fearfully  from  depression,  so  that  the 
disciples  did  not  dare  to  speak  to  him  and  were  even 
afraid  of  him.  He  knew  what  a  terrible  struggle  he 
must  have  with  the  religious  authorities  and  could  not 
help  realising  that  his  own  death  was  possible,  though 
not  inevitable.  He  would,  therefore,  try  to  strengthen 
the  faith  of  the  disciples  by  telling  them  that  whatever 
happened  to  him  the  Kingdom  of  God  would  surely 
come,  but  this  was  very  different  from  predicting  his 
death  as  inevitable  and  explaining  it  as  part  of  a  divine 
plan.  He  did  not  expect  to  die  before  the  coming  of 
the  Kingdom. 

§  LI II:    Mark  x,  35-45;  Luke  xxii,  24-28;  Matt.  xXy 

20-28 

How  entirely  materialistic  the  anticipations  concern- 
ing the  Kingdom  of  God  were  is  evident  from  the  request 
of  two  of  the  disciples  that  the  two  best  positions  in  the 
Kingdom  might  be  reserved  for  them,  nor  did  Jesus 
differ  from  them  in  this  respect ;  for  the  Kingdom  which 
he  anticipated  was  not  a  spiritual  and  heavenly  life, 
but  a  reconstructed  human  society,  with  God  in  control. 
That  two  of  the  disciples  could  make  such  a  request 
shows  that  Jesus  had  not,  a  short  time  before,  given 
the  chief  position  to  Peter.  He  does  not  rebuke  them 
for  their  request,  but  asks  if  they  are  really  able  to  share 
his  dangers  and  sufferings,  for  he  had  very  reasonable 
doubts  as  to  whether  they  could  be  depended  upon  at  a 
critical  moment.  The  question,  as  given  in  the  Gospel, 
"Can  ye  drink  of  the  cup  that  I  shall  drink  of?  and  be 
baptised  with  the  baptism  that  I  am  baptised  with?" 
is  expressed  in  the  language  of  later  sacramental  theories 
and  is  not  in  the  original  form,  as  put  by  Jesus.     They 


Jesus  on  the  Way  to  Jerusalem       259 

assured  him  that  they  were  able  to  share  his  dangers 
and  sufferings  and  he  expressed  his  gratification  at 
their  confidence  and  fidelity,  but  told  them  that  the 
places  of  honour  in  the  Kingdom  were  not  his  to  bestow, 
but  would  be  bestowed  by  God  according  to  his  pleasure 
which  is  further  evidence  that  he  had  not  presumed  to 
act  for  God  in  making  Peter  the  prime  minister  of  the 
Kingdom  and  that  he  did  not  think  of  himself  as  the 
Messiah.  By  the  time  that  Matthew's  Gospel  was 
written  the  halo  of  sanctity  which  seemed  to  separate 
the  apostles  from  ordinary  men  had  grown  so  bright 
as  to  make  it  no  longer  seem  possible  that  two  of  them 
could  display  such  ordinary  human  ambitions  as  were 
indicated  by  this  narrative.  The  author,  therefore, 
softened  down  the  tradition  so  as  to  make  it  appear 
that  it  was  not  the  men  themselves,  but  their  mother, 
who  made  the  request.  He  did  not,  however,  make 
the  alteration  very  successfully,  for,  in  his  Gospel,  the 
mother  disappears  after  asking  the  question  and  the 
conversation  is  carried  on  with  the  men  themselves. 

The  other  disciples,  learning  that  two  of  their  number 
had  tried  to  steal  a  march  upon  them  by  getting  in  a 
claim  to  the  best  places  in  the  coming  Kingdom,  were 
angry  and  a  quarrel  arose,  which  gave  Jesus  the  oppor- 
tunity for  some  very  necessary  instruction.  The  new 
human  society  in  the  Kingdom  of  God  woiild  be  as 
real  as  the  world  about  them  then  was,  but  it  would  be 
of  a  totally  different  spirit  and  with  entirely  new  ambi- 
tions. Instead  of  a  struggle  for  position  and  power  to 
be  used  in  an  irresponsible  and  selfish  way,  those  who 
were  really  great  in  the  new  state  of  society  would  be 
the  ones  who  made  themselves  most  useful  to  their 
fellow  men.  In  this  way  Jesus  spiritualised  the  ideals 
w^hich  he  had  inherited  and  gave  them  a  new  life.     The 


26o  The  Historic  Jesus 

Kingdom  of  God  did  not  come  as  he  expected,  nor  when 
he  expected,  but  the  human  race  still  presses  forward 
toward  its  ideals,  realising  ever  more  clearly  as  the 
centuries  go  by  that  the  value  of  Hfe  is  in  exact  propor- 
tion to  the  service  rendered,  and  it  is  inevitable  that  this 
wonderful  intuition  of  Jesus  must  become  eventually 
the  great  lever  which  will  lift  all  humanity  toward  the 
greater  civilisation  of  the  centuries  to  come. 

Mark  adds,  in  the  45th  verse,  a  theory  of  the  death  of 
Jesus  which  he  would  have  repudiated  with  his  utmost 
vehemence  and  which  is  contrary  to  all  his  teaching, 
not  only  that  he  expected  to  die,  but  that  his  death 
would  be  in  the  natiu-e  of  purchase  money,  which  would 
make  it  possible  for  God  to  forgive  sins.  This  theory 
Mark  had  learned  from  Paul  who  had  developed  it  by 
trying  to  make  the  death  of  Jesus  fit  into  his  rabbinical 
theology.  The  belief  and  teaching  of  Jesus  was  that 
it  was  perfectly  natural  for  God  to  forgive  every  one 
who  came  to  himself  and  returned  in  love  and  loyalty 
to  his  Father,  because  the  Father  was  so  glad  that  the 
lost  was  found.  There  never  was  the  slightest  thought 
in  his  mind  that  God  had  to  be  paid  to  forgive ;  there- 
fore, wherever  there  is  a  suggestion  of  this  theory  in  the 
Gospel,  it  must  be  eliminated  from  the  true  story  of 
Jesus.  He  undoubtedly  said  to  his  disciples  that  he 
was  among  them  as  one  who  served.  All  the  activities 
of  his  Ufe  were  interpreted  by  him  in  terms  of  service, 
but  the  service  was  in  the  Hving,  not  in  the  dymg. 
They,  too,  were  to  learn  to  measure  the  value  of  their 
lives  not  by  what  they  could  get,  but  by  what  they 
could  do.  But  this  great  teaching  would  have  been 
entirely  nullified  if  he  had  added  that  his  death  would 
be  a  ransom;  for,  if  that  were  so,  it  would  not  matter 
much  whether  their  lives  were  of  any  real  use  or  not. 


Jesus  on  the  Way  to  Jerusalem       261 

The  chief  concern  would  be  to  make  sure  of  their  share 
of  the  ransom  and  all  through  the  Christian  ages  this 
Pauline  theory  of  the  death  of  Jesus  as  a  price  paid 
for  sin  has  paralysed  the  moral  energies  of  the  Christian 
multitude,  deadening  the  idealities  which  should  have 
grown  from  the  teaching  of  Jesus  by  the  narcotism  of  an 
atonement  and  the  specious  delusion  that  "Jesus  did 
it  all." 

§  LIV:     Mark  x^  46-52;  Luke  xviii,  35-43;  Matt,  xx, 

29-34 

Tradition  had  preserved  the  account  of  the  healing 
of  a  blind  man  at  Jericho.  Matthew  afterwards  made 
it  two  blind  men,  probably  because  he  had  omitted 
one  from  the  story  of  an  earlier  healing  at  Bethsaida. 

Luke  xix,  i-io 

Luke  alone  relates  the  story  of  Zacchaeus,  which  is 
very  similar  to  the  earlier  account  of  Levi  and  is  a 
further  illustration  of  the  attitude  of  Jesus  toward 
repentant  sinners  and  his  belief  that  God  felt  as  he  did, 
glad  of  their  return,  without  any  thought  of  legal 
procedure  or  legal  satisfaction.  This  always  scandal- 
ised the  Pharisees,  as  did  the  custom  of  Jesus  of  Uving 
on  friendly  terms  with  people,  who  did  not  regulate 
their  lives  according  to  the  Jewish  tradition. 

Luke  xix,  11-27;  Matt,  xxv,  14-30 

Luke  also  gives  a  parable,  which  he  confuses  with  an 
allegory. 

The  parable,  interpreted  in  modem  speech,  teaches 


262  The  Historic  Jesus 

that  life  is  a  trust  and  that  its  results  will  naturally  be 
in  exact  proportion  to  each  one's  fidelity  in  the  execu- 
tion of  his  trust. 

At  the  judgment,  preceding  the  establishment  of  the 
Kingdom,  each  one's  record  would  be  shown  and  then 
those  who  had  done  well  would  be  given  new  positions 
of  trust  in  the  Kingdom,  according  to  the  ability  which 
each  had  displayed,  while  those  who  had  neglected 
such  gifts  as  they  had  would  be  cast  out  into  outer 
darkness  to  mourn  their  neglected  opportunities. 
Matthew  conserves  the  conclusion  of  the  parable 
better  than  Luke.  The  teaching  is  wonderful,  for  it  is 
nothing  less  than  the  enunciation  of  a  law  which  is 
always  in  operation  in  this  world  and  which  Jesus 
believed  was  also  in  operation  upon  the  larger  scale  of 
life  throughout  the  universe.  "Unto  every  one  that 
hath  will  be  given ;  but  from  him  that  hath  not,  even  that 
he  hath  will  be  taken  away  from  him."  There  are  re- 
peated crises  in  every  one's  life  at  which  the  only  questions 
are :  What  use  have  y ou  made  of  y otuself ,  what  have  you 
done  with  such  physical,  mental,  moral,  aesthetic, 
spiritual  powers  as  you  had?  For  those  who  have  done 
well  in  developing  the  power  within  them  there  are 
always  positions  of  greater  responsibility  waiting,  while 
for  those  who  have  neglected  the  use  of  themselves 
there  is  a  constant  slipping  back.  Such  is  the  law  in 
this  world — use  or  lose —  and  our  experience  shows  that 
it  admits  of  no  exceptions.  Jesus  was  sure  that  it  was 
the  universal  law  and  applied  to  life  everywhere,  but 
theologians  have  always  obscured  his  teaching  by  per- 
suading people  that  the  final  issues  of  life  do  not  depend 
upon  a  man's  intrinsic  value,  but  upon  what  opinions 
he  has  held. 

When  men  grow  wise  enough  to  be  able  to  dispense 


Jesus  on  the  Way  to  Jerusalem       263 

with  their  blind  guides,  this  great  teaching  of  Jesus, 
appealing  as  it  does  to  the  normal  human  sense  of 
justice  and  to  the  noblest  human  ambitions,  will  be- 
come the  inspiration  of  a  permanent  and  sober  enthu- 
siasm, opening  the  grand  vista  of  superb  positions  of 
responsibility,  capacity,  and  power  for  which  men  are 
training  themselves  hereafter  by  the  development  of 
the  powers  within  them  here  and  now. 

Those  who  are  under  the  spell  of  theological  traditions 
imagine  that  Jesus  in  this  parable  was  referring  to  his 
own  future  return  to  judgment,  after  his  journey  into  a 
"far  country."  There  is  nothing,  however,  in  the 
parable  to  warrant  such  an  interpretation,  while  it  is 
entirely  contrary  to  his  attitude  and  belief.  It  was 
simply  an  illustration  of  what  would  befall  men  at  the 
coming  judgment,  an  illustration  introduced  by  the 
words,  as  Matthew  gives  them,  "It  is  as  when." 
Nor  was  it  told,  as  Luke  supposed,  to  correct  the  mis- 
apprehensions of  those  who  "supposed"  that  the  King- 
dom of  God  was  immediately  to  appear,  for  this  was 
precisely  not  only  what  Jesus  supposed,  but  what  he 
believed  with  all  his  might.  He  certainly  did  not  tell 
a  parable  to  contradict  the  very  thing  that  he  was 
trying  to  persuade  men  to  believe;  but,  when  Luke 
wrote,  it  had  become  very  convenient  to  give  the  para- 
ble a  new  interpretation,  making  it  refer  to  Jesus  as  the 
King  who  had  gone  into  a  far  country  and  would  return 
to  hold  a  reckoning  with  his  servants.  Luke  confuses 
the  original  teaching  still  more  by  making  Jesus  illus- 
trate his  supposed  meaning  by  means  of  an  allegory 
drawn  from  what  was  then  recent  history.  When 
Herod  the  Great  died,  4  B.C.,  his  son  Archaelaus  went  to 
Rome  to  solicit  the  Kingdom  from  Augustus.  The 
Jews  also  sent  a  delegation  to  Rome  to  beg  Augustus 


264  The  Historic  Jesus 

not  to  make  him  King,  but  Augustus  compromised  the 
matter  by  making  him  Ethnarch  of  Judaea  and  Samaria. 
It  is  quite  probable  that  on  his  return  Archaelaus 
rewarded  those  who  had  been  loyal  to  him.  Jesus 
drew  his  illustrations  from  nature  and  from  the  familiar 
occupations  of  daily  life,  never  from  history,  and  would 
hardly  have  used  the  doings  of  Archaelaus  to  illustrate 
the  methods  of  God;  but  Luke  found  this  story  in 
Josephus  {Ant.,  xvii,  11,  1-4)  and  thought  that  "A  cer- 
tain nobleman  who  went  into  a  far  country  to  receive 
for  himself  a  Kingdom  and  to  return  "  was  a  most  fitting 
illustration  for  a  parable  of  Jesus  which  he  entirely 
misunderstood. 


a 


III.      THE  PASSION 

§§  LV-XC 

§  LV:    Mark  xi,  i-io;  Luke  xix,  2Q-j8;  Matt,  xxi,  i-g 

Jesus  and  his  disciples  arrived  at  Bethany,  a  vil- 
lage about  three  miles  from  Jerusalem.  He  had  friends 
there,  who  were  known  to  later  tradition  as  the  sis- 
ters Mary  and  Martha.  Being  much  worn  from  the 
intense  nervous  strain  of  the  preceding  weeks  and  weary 
from  the  journey,  he  determined  to  ride  to  Jerusalem 
the  following  day  and  for  this  purpose  sent  two  of  his 
disciples  to  a  neighbouring  village  to  find  an  ass.  This 
simple  fact  was  afterward  narrated  among  the  Chris- 
tians in  a  way  to  give  the  impression  that  he  had  super- 
natural knowledge  as  to  where  they  would  find  an  ass 
and  supematiu-al  influence  over  its  owners  to  compel 
them  to  have  it  ready  and  waiting  for  him.  It  is 
certainly  very  improbable  that  Jesus  suggested  or  that 
the  disciples  selected  an  unbroken  colt,  which  would 
have  been  a  very  imcomfortable  and  uncertain  animal 
to  ride  and  especially  in  the  midst  of  such  a  crowd  as 
the  Passover  brought  together  upon  the  roads  leading 
to  Jerusalem,  but  the  Messianic  theories  of  the  early 
Christians  made  them  like  to  think  of  this  event  as  the 
royal  entrance  of  the  Son  of  David  into  his  kingdom 
and  it  seemed  to  them  that  a  colt  which  had  not  been 
ridden  conferred  a  special  dignity. 

265 


266  The  Historic  Jesus 

Their  successors,  early  in  the  second  century,  went 
further  and  imagined  that  this  simple  riding  to  Jerusa- 
lem was  the  literal  fulfilment  of  a  prophecy  which  they 
found  in  second  Zechariah,  written  about  280  B.C.,  and 
which  stated  that  a  futiu*e  King,  who  would  conquer 
Damascus,  Tyre,  Sidon,  Ascalon,  etc.,  and  establish 
a  great  kingdom,  stretching  from  the  Mediterranean 
and  the  Red  Sea  to  the  Euphrates,  would  make  his 
triumphal  entry  into  Jerusalem  riding  upon  an  ass, 
even  a  colt,  the  foal  of  an  ass.  They  even  imagined 
that  Jesus  arranged  the  ride  in  order  to  fulfil  the  pro- 
phecy (Mt.  xxi,  4),  and  went  so  far  in  their  literalness 
as  to  declare  (Mt.  xxi,  7)  that  he  rode  two  animals  at 
once.  That,  however,  the  early  Christians  enjoyed 
no  monopoly  of  folly  may  be  evident  from  the  perusal 
of  some  of  the  most  modem  "Lives  of  Jesus, "  in  which 
men  of  large  attainments  in  scholarship  and  great 
reputation  do  not  hesitate  to  state  that  Jesus  felt  it 
encumbent  upon  himself  to  carry  out  the  provisions  of 
this  prophecy.  In  other  words,  they  assimie  that  the 
Jewish  notions  about  a  Messiah  had  a  substantial 
basis,  that  a  Messiah  was  an  inevitable  reality,  that 
Jesus  was  the  Messiah,  that  he  knew  himself  to  be  the 
Messiah,  tha^  everything  that  the  Messiah  should  do 
had  been  planned  by  God  and  supematiu-ally  revealed 
to  the  prophets  centuries  before,  that  the  prophecy  of 
second  Zechariah  referred  to  him,  that  he  had  no  voli- 
tion except  to  obey,  that  he  studied  the  stage  setting 
previously  prescribed  and  devoted  himself  to  carrying 
out  its  details. 

Here  are  ten  assumed  premises  upon  which  the  great 
structure  of  orthodox  conclusions  is  reared,  and  not  one 
of  the  premises  is  true.  It  is  amazing  that  men  do  not 
see  that  in  thus  portraying  Jesus  as  simply  playing  a 


The  Passion  267 

part  as  previously  arranged  for  him  they  destroy  his 
dignity,  detracting  from  the  greatness  of  his  faith,  the 
power  of  his  love,  and  the  supreme  sacrifice  of  his  devo- 
tion in  trying  to  win  the  Jewish  people  into  a  citizen- 
ship worthy  of  the  Kingdom  of  God. 

The  disciples  and  others  who  had  made  the  long 
journey  from  Galilee  with  Jesus  were,  as  we  should  say, 
people  carried  away  by  an  idea.  They  believed  that 
the  Kingdom  of  God  was  really  coming  and  that  they 
were  to  be  the  first  to  share  in  its  victory  and  joy.  For 
this  belief  they  had  given  up  everything.  To  them  it 
meant  the  overthrow  of  the  Roman  dominion  and  the 
establishment  of  a  new  Jewish  empire  with  Jerusalem 
as  its  capital  and  a  vaguely  perceived  new  sort  of 
righteousness  as  its  manner  of  life,  while  with  Jesus 
the  political  form  of  the  coming  Kingdom  was  entirely 
subordinate  to  the  new  human  life  which  he  anticipated, 
a  life  from  which  all  moral  evil,  poverty,  and  disease 
would  be  aboHshed  and  in  which  absolute  goodness  would 
spring  up  spontaneously  like  a  living  fountain  from 
every  heart.  It  was  natural  that  as  they  approached 
Jerusalem  the  enthusiasm  should  grow  and  that  on 
the  day  of  their  entry  it  should  break  out  into  shouts 
of  joy.  Some  of  them  threw  their  outer  garments  upon 
the  ass,  others  upon  the  road  before  him,  while  others 
cut  the  green  underbrush  from  the  fields  and  strewed 
it  in  the  way.  There  is  an  interesting  matter  in  connec- 
tion with  this  underbrush,  which  was  the  ordinary  wild 
growth  between  the  olive  trees,  such  as  rushes,  or  reeds. 
So  it  was  stated  in  the  earliest  tradition  and  recorded 
by  Mark.  Luke  did  not  mention  it  at  all,  while  Mat- 
thew, writing  early  in  the  next  century  and  at  a  distance 
from  Judaea  and  knowing  nothing  about  the  conditions 
of  life  in  Palestine,  states  that  they  cut  down  branches 


268  The  Historic  Jesus 

from  the  trees,  whereas  there  were  no  trees  but  olive 
trees,  from  which  no  one  would  have  ventured  to  cut 
branches.  A  generation  after  Matthew  the  writer  of 
the  fourth  Gospel,  also  knowing  nothing  of  Palestine^ 
declared  that  they  were  palm  branches,  whereas  there 
never  was  a  palm  tree  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Jerusa- 
lem. The  Jews  did  use  palm  branches  at  the  Feast  of 
Tabernacles,  but  they  were  brought  there  for  the  festi- 
val from  a  place  known  as  the  "Iron  Mountain." 
From  the  two  blunders  in  the  first  and  fourth  Gospels 
the  later  custom  of  observing  Palm  Sunday  grew  up, 
and  so  sure  were  the  King  James  translators  that  when 
Jesus  rode  to  Jerusalem  the  road  was  covered  with 
palms  that  they  altered  the  text  of  Mark's  Gospel  to 
make  it  correspond  with  the  statement  by  Matthew, 
whereas  Mark  never  mentioned  either  branches  or  trees. 
The  new  version  still  adheres  to  the  altered  text,  but 
suggests  "layers  of  leaves"  as  a  possible  reading,  but, 
leaving  the  impression  of  palm  leaves  and  ignoring  the 
fact  that  only  olive  leaves  were  available  and  that  they 
were  impossible. 

The  excitement  and  enthusiasm  of  the  friends  of 
Jesus  broke  out  into  singing  the  familiar  words  of  the 
1 1 8th  Psalrr  "Blessed  is  he  that  cometh  in  the  name 
of  the  Lord."  This  was  the  Psalm  assigned  especially 
to  the  Feast  of  Tabernacles,  to  which  tradition  said 
was  added,  "Blessed  be  the  kingdom  of  our  father 
David,  that  cometh  in  the  name  of  the  Lord:  Ho- 
sanna  in  the  highest." 

The  earliest  tradition,  therefore,  did  not  represent 
the  disciples  and  others  as  proclaiming  Jesus  as  the 
Messiah  on  this  occasion,  their  thoughts  being  occupied 
chiefly  with  the  glories  of  the  kingdom  of  David  so 
soon  to  be  restored.     By  the  later  tradition,  on  the 


The  Passion  269 

contrary,  their  enthusiasm  was  directed  to  the  person  of 
Jesus.  According  to  Luke  it  was  not,  "Blessed  be  the 
Kingdom  of  our  father  David"  which  they  shouted, 
but  "Blessed  be  the  King  that  cometh  in  the  name  of 
the  Lord,"  while  Matthew  thought  that  they  had  sung 
Hosanna  to  the  Son  of  David.  Thus  the  changes  of 
tradition  illustrate  the  developments  of  belief. 

Luke  xix,  39-44;  Matt,  xxi,  10,  11 

Luke  and  Matthew  make  some  additions  to  the 
original  narrative,  which  cannot  be  historical. 

Luke  says  that  the  Pharisees  asked  Jesus  to  rebuke 
his  disciples  for  their  singing,  which  is  quite  improb- 
able, because  all  the  multitudinous  companies  of 
pilgrims  were  accustomed  to  sing  some  of  the  Psalms 
on  the  last  day  of  their  journey  to  Jerusalem  and  the 
valleys  and  hillsides  resounded  everywhere  with  song; 
nor,  if  the  singing  of  the  disciples  and  friends  of  Jesus 
had  been  as  given  in  the  earliest  accoimt,  could  the 
Pharisees  have  objected.  Luke  says  that,  when  they 
came  in  sight  of  the  city,  Jesus  wept  over  it,  since  it 
was  going  to  be  destroyed,  because  it  had  not  known  its 
great  opportimity.  This  is  a  prophecy  after  the  event 
and  is  entirely  unhistorical.  Jesus  had  come  to  Jeru- 
salem in  the  hope  of  winning  a  multitude  to  prepare 
for  the  Kingdom  of  God  and  he  certainly  had  not  given 
up  the  hope  before  making  the  attempt,  nor  did  he  an- 
ticipate the  destruction  of  the  city  in  which  he  believed 
that  God  was  about  to  establish  his  personal  reign. 

The  statement  in  Matthew's  Gospel  that  "the  whole 
city  was  stirred"  cannot  be  true,  because  companies 
of  pilgrims  were  arriving  all  the  time  and  all  of  them 
in  a  state  of  great  religious  excitement.     Some  of  those, 


270  The  Historic  Jesus 

who  saw  that  the  enthusiasm  of  the  little  company  from 
Galilee  was  centred  upon  their  leader,  perhaps  asked 
who  he  was  and  were  told,  according  to  the  late  tradi- 
tion in  Matthew's  Gospel,  that  he  was  "the  prophet, 
Jesus,"  from  Nazareth  of  Galilee.  If  this  be  a  true 
tradition,  it  is  evident  that  the  most  loyal  friends  of 
Jesus  did  not  make  any  claim  at  that  time  that  he  was 
the  Messiah. 

§  LVI:     Mark  xi,  11-14 

Jesus  went  into  the  temple  and  "looked  round  about 
him  upon  all  things."  Whether  he  had  ever  been 
there  before,  or  not,  we  do  not  know.  The  preaching 
of  John  the  Baptist,  which  awoke  his  great  enthusiasm 
for  the  coming  of  the  Kingdom  of  God,  had  been  a 
violent  protest  against  the  priests  and  their  whole 
system  of  religion,  but  Jesus  had  done  his  work  in 
Galilee  far  away  from  any  contact  with  them.  The 
"better  righteousness"  which  he  believed  to  be  a 
fundamental  condition  for  admission  to  the  Kingdom 
of  God  had  led  him  into  frequent  conflict  with  the 
Pharisees  and  their  artificial  righteousness,  but  appar- 
ently he  hac"  never  mentioned  the  priests;  whereas,  if 
he  had  ever  been  to  Jerusalem,  the  sight  of  its  barbaric 
methods  for  persuading  God  to  be  gracious  would  have 
affected  him,  as  it  did  on  this  occasion,  and  he  would 
never  have  neglected  an  opportunity  for  showing  that 
the  priestly  system  was  subversive  of  all  religion. 
On  the  contrary,  he  ignored  it  and,  instead  of  de- 
nouncing the  machinery  of  forgiveness,  taught  simply 
that  love  was  the  measure  of  the  forgiveness  of  sins. 
"She  is  forgiven  much,  because  she  loved  much"  ex- 
pressed his  whole  theory  of  divine  forgiveness;  but  had 


The  Passion  271 

he  applied  it,  it  was  subversive  of  the  Jewish  religion. 
When  he  entered  the  great  outer  court  of  the  temple 
the  scene  which  he  looked  upon  gave  him  such  a  shock 
as  he  had  not  had  before.  He  had  come  to  Jerusalem 
full  of  enthusiasm,  courage,  devotion,  and  hope,  to  tell 
the  people  that  the  Kingdom  of  God  was  coming  and 
to  win  men  to  such  a  real  transformation  of  character 
as  would  fit  them  for  citizenship;  but  here  was  the 
first  great  barrier,  for  this  enormous  court  was  filled 
with  cattle,  sheep,  lambs,  pigeons,  and  men.  The 
confused  noise  of  thousands  of  animals,  the  shouting 
of  the  sellers,  the  loud  wrangling  over  prices,  the  push- 
ing and  crowding,  the  dust,  the  heat,  the  odours,  the 
noises,  it  was  an  intolerable  scene.  And  then  there 
was  the  multitude  of  lesser  sellers  crying  their  incense, 
oil,  wine,  and  spices,  and,  in  quieter  comers,  the  money- 
changers selling  the  old  Jewish  or  Tyrian  half  shekels, 
one  to  every  man,  for  the  temple  tax.  The  priests 
would  receive  nothing  else  and  they  owned  the  entire 
supply,  which  was  sold  to  the  pilgrims  at  exorbitant 
rates  of  exchange  and  which,  being  received  by  the 
priests,  was  at  once  sent  out  to  be  sold  again,  while 
they  also  received  a  commission  on  the  sale  of  the 
animals.  The  den  of  thieves  was  perfectly  apparent 
to  any  intelligent  observer.  And  yet  all  this  confusion 
of  noise,  barbarism,  and  fraud  was  in  the  interest  of 
religion  and  under  the  sanction  of  religion.  The  Jews 
were  getting  ready  to  celebrate  the  greatest  religious 
function  of  the  year  and  they  really  believed  that  God 
had  devised  and  ordered  this  complicated  system  of 
the  slaughter  of  animals  as  an  equivalent  for  the  punish- 
ments which  otherwise  he  would  feel  obliged  to  inflict 
upon  them.  But  Jesus,  as  he  looked  upon  this  dis- 
tressing scene,  remembered  that  centuries  before  a  few 


272  The  Historic  Jesus 

brave  men  had  made  manly  protests  in  the  name  of 
God  against  the  delusions  of  a  priestly  religion. 

He  recalled  that  eight  hundred  years  before  Amos 
(v,  21  ff.)  had  said:  "I  hate,  I  despise  your  feast  days, 
and  I  will  not  smell  in  your  solemn  assemblies.  Though 
ye  offer  me  burnt  offerings  and  your  meat-offerings,  I 
will  not  accept  them:  neither  will  I  regard  the  peace- 
offerings  of  your  fat  beasts.  .  .  .  But  let  judgment 
run  down  as  waters,  and  righteousness  as  a  mighty 
stream."  Isaiah,  too,  had  protested  against  the 
whole  sacrificial  system,  in  the  words  (i,  ii  ff.): 
"To  what  purpose  is  the  multitude  of  your  sacrifices 
unto  me?  saith  Jahveh.  I  am  full  of  the  burnt  offer- 
ings of  rams,  and  the  fat  of  fed  beasts;  and  I  delight 
not  in  the  blood  of  bullocks,  or  of  lambs,  or  of  he  goats. 
When  ye  come  to  appear  before  me,  who  hath  required 
this  at  your  hands  to  tread  my  courts  ?  Bring  no  more 
vain  oblations :  incense  is  an  abomination  unto  me ;  the 
new  moons  and  Sabbaths,  the  calling  of  assemblies,  I 
cannot  away  with.  It  is  iniquity,  even  the  solemn 
meeting.  .  .  .  Wash  you,  make  you  clean;  put  away 
the  evil  of  your  doings  from  before  mine  eyes ;  cease  to 
do  evil;  learn  to  do  well,  seek  judgment,  relieve  the 
oppressed,  jrdge  the  fatherless;  plead  for  the  widow." 

Micah  vi.,  6,  too,  had  written:  "Wherewith  shall  I 
come  before  Jahveh  and  bow  myself  before  the  high 
God?  shall  I  come  before  him  with  burnt-offerings, 
with  calves  of  a  year  old?  Will  Jahveh  be  pleased 
with  thousands  of  rams,  or  with  ten  thousands  of  rivers 
of  oil?  shall  I  give  my  first-bom  for  my  transgression, 
the  fruit  of  my  body  for  the  sin  of  my  soul?  He  hath 
shewed  thee,  O  man,  what  is  good;  and  what  doth 
Jahveh  require  of  thee  but  to  do  justly  and  to  love 
mercy  and  to  walk  humbly  with  thy  God  " ! 


The  Passion  273 

These  grand  protests  against  a  religion  of  priests 
might  have  resulted  in  the  development  of  high  stand- 
ards of  character  among  the  Jewish  people  but  for  the 
unfortunate  coalition  of  prophets  and  priests  in  the 
time  of  Josiah,  which  led  to  the  "discovery"  of  the  pre- 
tended law  and  established  the  priestly  system  as  of 
divine  authority,  leading  in  the  following  century  to  the 
wail  of  Jeremiah  that  they  had  made  the  temple  a  den 
of  thieves.  All  this  realisation  of  what  might  have 
been  and  what  ought  to  be  swept  in  a  flood  over  the 
soul  of  Jesus  as  he  looked  upon  the  distressing  scene 
in  the  temple  court  and  turned  with  a  heavy  heart  to 
go  to  his  quiet  retreat  at  Bethany,  pondering  on  what 
he  had  seen  and  wondering  what  he  could  do. 

Mark  breaks  the  narrative  in  two  places  to  introduce 
the  impossible  story  of  a  fig  tree.  He  had  mistaken  a 
parable  for  an  actual  occurrence,  but  Luke,  with  his 
greater  literary  ability,  recognised  the  blunder  and  did 
not  repeat  it,  while  Matthew  undertook  to  increase  the 
marvellousness.  It  is  evident  that  Jesus  must  have 
eaten  before  leaving  Bethany  and  therefore  was  not 
hungry.  He  did  not  expect  to  find  figs  on  a  tree  out  of 
season,  nor  did  he  get  angry  at  a  tree  for  not  bearing 
figs  either  in,  or  out  of  season,  nor  did  he  ever  curse  a 
tree.  That  such  a  story  could  be  told  and  accepted 
shows  the  puerility  of  the  early  Christians  and  their 
utter  inability  to  comprehend  the  high  plane  of  moral 
and  spiritual  consciousness  upon  which  Jesus  lived. 

§  LVII:    Mark  xi,  15-19;  Luke  xix,  45-48;  Matt,  xxi^ 

12-17 

When  Jesus  awoke  on  the  following  morning  the 
thoughts  which  had  been  working  in  his  mind  while  he 


274  The  Historic  Jesus 

slept  had  taken  definite  shape  and  it  was  perfectly 
clear  to  him  that  he  must  stop  the  desecration  of  the 
temple,  the  tumult  of  trading,  the  wrangling,  confusion, 
and  noise  and  the  wholesale  robbery  of  the  people  by 
the  priests  and  so  restore  it  to  what  he  believed  to  be 
its  legitimate  uses,  making  it  a  house  of  prayer,  a  great 
synagogue,  full  of  a  holy  quiet,  where  men  might  go 
to  think,  to  pray,  to  worship,  and  to  learn.  It  meant  to 
him  nothing  less  than  the  entire  sweeping  away  of  an 
ancient  religion,  which  had  been  elaborating  its  ritual 
and  increasing  the  power  of  its  priests  for  five  hundred 
years'  ever  since  Ezra's  time,  and  which  sent  its  roots 
deep  down  into  the  soil  of  an  ancient,  barbaric  Semitism, 
the  abolition  of  all  sacrifices  to  placate  the  wrath  or  to 
win  the  favour  of  God,  the  destiniction  of  a  priestly 
caste,  the  setting  aside  of  all  mediators,  middle-men, 
brokers,  agents,  who  came  between  the  soul  of  man  and 
its  divine  Father.  Jesus  could  not  help  realising  that 
to  stop  the  sale  of  animals  was  to  stop  the  sacrifices,  and 
that  to  stop  the  sacrifices  was  to  make  the  priests  use- 
less and  thus  to  abolish  the  Jewish  religion.  That  he 
did  realise  the  full  meaning  of  his  act  became  evident 
on  the  following  day,  when  he  told  the  priests  that 
their  day  was  over  and  that  God  would  let  out  the 
vineyard  to  other  husbandmen.  What  the  conse- 
quences of  his  act  might  be  to  himself  he  did  not  con- 
sider. He  knew  that  he  was  doing  his  duty  and  thought 
of  nothing  else,  leaving  the  result  with  God.  With 
this  great  resolution  in  his  mind  he  entered  the  temple 
court  and  began  at  once  his  work  of  purification,  driving 
out  the  cattle,  the  sheep,  the  lam.bs,  with  their  buyers 
and  sellers,  the  pigeon  dealers  and  the  small  peddlers, 
and  scattering  the  coin  from  the  tables  of  the  money 
changers.     It  was  a  wonderful  scene,  one  man  against 


The  Passion  275 

hundreds,  and  yet  that  one  winning  the  day,  putting 
an  end  to  the  traffic  and  stopping  all  the  bustle  of 
ceremonial  religion.  Jesus  had  a  marvellous  presence, 
a  combination  of  winsomeness  and  commanding  power, 
which,  together  with  the  absolute  conviction  that  he 
was  right  made  him  irresistible.  Although  hundreds 
of  people  had  lost  by  his  act,  at  least  their  profits  for  the 
day,  there  seems  to  have  been  no  opposition.  On  the 
contrary,  he  apparently  had  the  sympathy  of  a  large 
proportion  of  the  people.  They  knew  that  they  were 
being  exploited  and  plundered  by  the  priests,  and  were 
glad  that  one  was  brave  enough  to  resist  them,  and  yet 
these  same  people  could  not  be  relied  upon  to  stand  by 
Jesus  in  a  crisis.  It  is  always  so  in  priest-ridden 
countries,  to-day  as  much  as  then.  The  people  know 
that  they  are  deceived  and  plundered  and  are  glad  to 
have  the  iniquities  of  the  priests  disclosed,  and  yet  there 
is  the  ingrained  belief,  inherited  from  centuries  of 
superstition,  that  the  system  which  they  represent  has 
divine  sanction.  Just  for  the  time  the  bold  act  of 
Jesus  had  won  for  him  a  multitude  of  sympathisers, 
so  that  the  priests  did  not  dare  to  arrest  him,  not 
that  they  were  afraid  of  the  people,  but  they  were 
afraid  of  the  Romans.  To  have  attempted  to  have  him 
arrested  by  the  temple  police  would  have  created  a 
tumult,  and  then  the  Roman  guards,  always  watching 
from  the  walls  of  the  fortress,  which  towered  above  the 
temple  courts,  everything  which  went  on  within  them, 
would  have  given  the  alarm,  and  Roman  soldiers  com- 
ing down  from  the  fortress  might  have  desecrated  the 
temple  with  bloodshed,  while  Pilate,  to  punish  them  for 
a  disturbance,  might  have  refused  to  let  the  High  Priest 
have  his  vestments  for  the  Passover,  which  the  Romans 
kept  locked  up  and  only  loaned  for  festivals  as  a  reward 


2/6  The  Historic  Jesus 

for  good  behavioiir.  The  priests  had,  therefore,  to 
restrain  themselves  and  Jesus  went  free  for  the  time 
being,  but,  as  Luke  said,  "they  sought  how  they  might 
destroy  him. "  It  was  no  longer,  as  with  the  Pharisees 
in  Galilee,  a  question  of  counteracting  his  influence. 
They  realised  that  they  must  kill  him,  but  the  question 
was,  how.  The  Sanhedrim  no  longer  had  the  power 
of  life  and  death.  They  must  either  hire  an  assassin, 
or  find  some  charge,  which  would  induce  Pilate  to  put 
him  to  death.  There  is  not  the  slightest  doubt  but 
that  it  was  this  act  of  Jesus  in  purifying  the  temple 
which  roused  the  hostiHty  of  the  priests  and  was  the 
determining  cause  of  his  death.  The  author  of  the 
first  Gospel,  however,  undertook  to  push  the  event  into 
the  backgroimd  as  a  matter  of  small  importance,  putting 
it  back  to  the  close  of  the  previous  day,  not  mentioning 
any  hostility  on  the  part  of  the  priests  as  the  result  of 
it  and  claiming  that  they  were  distressed  only  by  the 
number  of  healings  which  Jesus  effected.  All  this  is 
unhistorical  and  can  be  accounted  for  only  by  the  fact 
that  early  in  the  second  century  hierarchical  notions 
were  fast  creeping  back  among  the  Christians,  and  it 
had  become  unpopular  to  represent  Jesus  as  fundamen- 
tally opposed  to  them. 

§  LVIII:     Mark  xi,  20-25;  Matt,  xxi,  18-22 

The  remainder  of  the  story  of  the  fig  tree  again 
breaks  the  narrative.  Matthew  makes  but  one  account 
of  it,  since,  according  to  him,  the  tree  withered  imme- 
diately. Neither  account  is  historical,  but  the  mention 
of  a  mountain  cast  into  the  sea,  as  illustrating  the  power 
of  prayer,  is  evidence  that  the  original  parable,  Luke 
(xiii,  6),  was  told  in  Galilee,  with  both  moimtain  and 
lake  near  at  hand. 


The  Passion  277 

§  LIX:    Mark  xi,  27-33;  Luke  xx,  j-8;  Matt,  xxi, 
23-27 

It  was  necessary  for  the  priests,  while  planning  in 
secret  for  the  death  of  Jesus,  to  make  a  show  of  author- 
ity in  public  and  to  attempt  to  regain  their  prestige 
with  the  people,  which  had  suffered  a  rude  eclipse. 

There  came  to  him,  therefore,  on  the  following  day, 
as  he  was  walking  in  the  temple,  a  large  delegation  of 
priests,  scribes,  and  elders,  expecting  no  doubt  to  over- 
awe him  by  their  rank  and  reputation.  They  asked 
him  by  what  authority  he  had  acted  on  the  day  before 
and  who  gave  him  the  authority.  He  said  that  he 
would  tell  them,  if  they  would  answer  him  one  question : 
Did  John  the  Baptist  preach  on  his  own  authority,  or 
by  divine  commission?  They  could  not  answer  the 
question,  for,  if  they  said  that  John  was  under  divine 
authority,  he  would  naturally  ask  why,  then,  they  did 
not  believe  him;  whereas,  if  they  said  that  John  was 
simply  a  misguided  fanatic,  they  would  lose  caste  with 
the  people  who  had  been  greatly  impressed  by  John's 
preaching,  even  when  they  did  not  become  his  disciples. 
They  all  said  they  could  not  tell,  to  which  Jesus  replied : 
"Neither  will  I  tell  you  by  what  authority  I  do  these 
things." 

§  LX:    Mark  xii,  1-12;  Luke  xx,  Q-iQ;  Matt,  xxi, 
33-46 

Those  who  came  with  so  much  assurance  to  attack 
Jesus  must  have  been  astounded  at  finding  themselves 
beaten  by  the  use  of  their  own  weapons  and  still  more 
amazed  when,  in  their  confusion,  he  turned  upon  them 
with  an  allegory,  which  was  nothing  less  than  the  pro- 


278  The  Historic  Jesus 

clamation  of  the  end  of  their  dominion.  It  was  one  of 
the  rare  and  memorable  crises  of  human  history  when 
Jesus  alone  dared  to  face  the  representatives  of  a 
great  and  powerful  religion  and  to  tell  them  that  God 
was  about  to  take  away  their  prestige  and  wealth, 
their  reputation  and  their  control  over  Hfe  and  con- 
science, because  they  had  failed  to  make  the  vineyard 
entrusted  to  them  yield  its  expected  fruits.  It  was  a 
magnificent  manifestation  of  faith  and  courage  and 
never  has  been  properly  appreciated,  because  the  world 
has  been  taught  to  think  that  Jesus  was  talking  from 
the  consciousness  of  Messiahship  and  not  from  the 
power  of  personal  conviction. 

The  allegory,  as  it  has  come  down  to  us,  is  not  in  its 
original  form,  but  in  a  much-developed  form  to  suit 
the  views  of  a  later  generation  of  Christians. 

Jesus  certainly  reminded  his  enemies  that  their 
ancestors  had  generally  killed  the  prophets,  in  other 
words  that  priests  and  theologians  had  generally  gotten 
rid  of  the  men  who  had  tried  to  bring  the  people  to  a 
better  realisation  of  God  and  a  more  genuine  sponta- 
neity of  goodness  and  so  to  emancipate  them  from 
priestly  control.  By  implication,  they  were  of  the 
same  spirit  as  their  predecessors  and  God's  patience 
was  exhausted.  He  was  about  to  turn  them  out  of 
the  vineyard  and  to  put  more  promising  men  in  control. 
This  was  an  amazing  declaration,  nothing  less  than  the 
assertion  of  his  belief  that  the  Jewish  religion  had  come 
to  an  end,  that  the  pretended  divine  right  of  the  priests, 
their  sanctity  in  the  eyes  of  the  people,  the  enormous 
revenues  which  they  enjoyed,  the  majesty  of  the  law 
which  they  taught  the  people  had  been  devised  and 
given  by  God,  the  elaborate  system  of  sacrifices  for  the 
forgiveness  of  sins,  the  prayers,  fastings.  Sabbath  ob- 


The  Passion  279 

servances,  and  alms  for  the  accumulation  of  merit,  all 
were  to  be  abolished  and  a  new  set  of  husbandmen 
put  in  charge  of  the  vineyard,  under  whose  better  care 
it  would  yield  a  rich  harvest  of  fruits  in  the  lives  and 
characters  of  men.  All  this  Jesus  said  by  implication 
and  all  this  his  hearers  understood. 

It  is  no  wonder  that  "they  sought  to  lay  hold  on 
him  "and  plotted  to  kill  him.  There  was  nothing  else 
for  them  to  do,  since  his  act  of  the  day  before  had 
created  a  great  sensation  and  won  for  him  many 
temporary  friends. 

The  part  of  the  allegory  which  did  not  originate  with 
him  was  the  mention  of  the  "son"  whom  the  owner 
of  the  vineyard  finally  sent  and  whom  the  husband- 
men determined  to  kill,  because  he  was  the  "heir." 
This  was  a  later  theological  allegory  added  by  the 
Christians.  Jesus,  in  talking  with  priests  and  scribes, 
made  no  claims  for  himself  as  the  "son"  and  "heir" 
of  God;  for  he  not  only  would  not  have  persuaded 
them  to  recognise  such  claims,  but  would  have  weak- 
ened his  position  in  making  them. 

Nor  could  he  have  suggested  that  they  would  kill 
him,  since,  with  his  great  accomplishment  of  the  pre- 
vious day  and  his  recent  victory  over  the  priests  and 
scribes  he  was  not  expecting  to  be  killed,  but  antici- 
pated for  himself  a  large  share  in  the  management  of 
the  divine  vineyard,  as  well  as  for  his  friends,  whom 
he  had  assured  that  it  was  their  Father's  good  pleasure 
to  give  them  the  Kingdom. 

The  allegory  received  a  still  further  adaptation  to 
later  views  in  Matthew's  Gospel,  which  makes  Jesus 
say  that  the  Kingdom  of  God  would  be  taken  from  the 
Jews  and  given  to  a  nation  bringing  forth  the  fruits 
thereof.     This  can  mean  nothing  less  than  the  deposi- 


28o  The  Historic  Jesus 

tion  of  the  Jewish  people  from  the  control  of  religion 
in  favour  of  the  new,  great  Church  among  foreign 
people,  ideas  which  never  entered  the  mind  of  Jesus 
at  all,  while  the  identification  of  the  Kingdom  of  God 
with  Judaism  and  then  with  the  new  ecclesiasticism  of 
the  second  century  shows  how  far  the  Christians  had 
wandered  from  what  Jesus  meant  by  it. 

§  LXI:    Mark  xii,  13-17;  Luke  xx,  20-26;  Matt,  xxii, 

15-22 

While  plotting  for  the  death  of  Jesus,  it  seemed  to 
the  priests  and  scribes  that  by  skilfully  arranged  ques- 
tions he  might  be  made  to  commit  himself  in  some 
way  that  would  either  discredit  him  with  the  people 
or  show  him  to  be  dangerous  to  the  Roman  government. 
For  this  purpose  two  parties,  ordinarily  hostile,  came 
together  and  easily  foimd  a  question  which  it  seemed 
impossible  for  him  to  answer  without  arousing  great 
hostility  against  himself  from  one  side  or  the  other. 

The  Pharisees,  as  the  extreme  representatives  of 
orthodoxy,  held  that  it  was  sinful  to  pay  taxes  to  the 
Roman  government,  since  to  do  so  was  to  acknowledge 
another  sovereignty  than  that  of  God,  while  the  Hero- 
dians  were  the  court  party,  whose  policy  was  to  be  on 
good  terms  with  the  government  at  any  cost.  Was 
it  lawful  to  pay  tribute  to  Csesar,  or  no?  If  he  said 
Yes,  he  would  lose  nearly  all  his  friends  among  the 
Jews;  for,  while  only  the  zealots  resisted  payment 
unto  death,  the  rest  paid  their  taxes  only  under  pro- 
test and  conflicts  with  the  Roman  government  were  of 
frequent  occurrence.  If,  on  the  contrary,  Jesus  said 
No,  it  would  be  a  simple  matter  to  accuse  him  to  the 
Romans  as  a  public  teacher  of  sedition.     Jesus  was 


The  Passion  281 

quick  to  discover  men's  motives  back  of  their  conduct, 
and  flattery  did  not  deceive  him  in  the  least.  He 
denounced  them  at  once  as  hypocritical,  tricky,  and 
wicked,  and  said,  "Show  me  a  denarion."  The  English 
translation — "penny" — is  misleading.  The  coin  for 
which  Jesus  asked  was  not  even  a  copper  com,  for  the 
Roman  government  in  taking  possession  of  Judaea  had 
been  obliged  to  yield  to  Jewish  fanaticism  so  far  as  to 
issue  special  copper  coins  for  Judaea  without  the  head  of 
the  emperor,  for  the  Jews  had  a  law  which  said :  "Thou 
shalt  not  make  to  thyself  any  graven  image,  nor  the 
likeness  of  anything,"  etc.  The  Christian  world  still 
teaches  this  Jewish  prohibition  of  art  to  its  children 
and  reads  it  as  a  divine  law  in  some  of  the  churches, 
but  does  not  obey  it,  nor  expect  it  to  be  obeyed.  Only 
Jews  and  Arabs  do  that,  the  latter  of  whom,  at  one 
time,  gave  vent  to  their  artistic  temperaments  by  in- 
venting the  Arabesque  which  is  not  like  anything  in 
the  heavens  above,  or  the  earth  beneath,  or  the  waters 
under  the  earth.  The  Roman  government  did  not 
yield  to  the  Jews  with  regard  to  the  coinage  of  silver, 
and  it  was  the  common  silver  denarion  which  Jesus 
asked  to  see.  "Whose  is  this  image  and  superscription?" 
he  asked,  "Caesar's."  "Then  render  unto  Caesar  the 
things  that  are  Caesar's."  The  coins  in  circulation 
showed  to  whom  they  were  subject  and  they  must  pay 
their  taxes  to  the  estabHshed  government.  Jesus  was 
not  inciting  to  revolution.  He  said  virtually  that  it  was 
right  to  pay  tribute  to  Caesar,  but  he  did  not  stop  with 
that  answer,  as  his  enemies  would  have  liked  to  have 
him  do,  for  he  added  that  they  were  also  to  render 
to  God  the  things  that  were  God's.  There  were  vastly 
more  important  things  in  Hfe  than  their  idle  question 
about  the  tribute,  and  their  political  vassalage  did  not 


282  The  Historic  Jesus 

absolve  them  from  their  duties  as  moral  and  spiritual 
beings.  This  was  the  whole  point  of  the  answer  of 
Jesus.  Men  must  discharge  the  duties  which  human 
conditions  imposed  upon  them,  while  never  losing 
sight  of  their  moral  and  spiritual  relationships.  It  was 
a  great  principle  always  and  everywhere  applicable. 
The  doctrine  of  the  separation  of  Church  and  State, 
while  altogether  true  and  necessary,  was  not  contained 
in  the  answer  of  Jesus,  although  it  has  been  deduced 
from  it  in  many  learned  treatises.  Jesus  was  not 
thinking  of  any  such  problem  as  that  involved  in  the 
relationship  of  Church  and  State,  nor  could  he  have 
conceived  the  idea  of  two  co-ordinate  powers,  the  tem- 
poral and  the  spiritual,  which  dominated  the  thought 
of  Eiu*ope  for  so  many  centuries.  He  believed  that 
the  Kingdom  of  God  was  soon  to  be  established  in  the 
world,  but,  while  waiting  and  preparing  for  it,  there 
was  no  question  but  that  men  must  pay  taxes  to  the 
estabUshed  government.  His  questioners  were  dumb- 
founded. He  had  answered  their  question  and  yet 
not  in  a  way  which  would  discredit  him  with  the  people, 
or  afford  ground  for  a  charge  against  him  in  a  Roman 
court. 

§  LXII:  Mark  xii,  18-27;  Luke  xx,  27-38;  Matt,  xxii, 

22-33 

Now  that  the  Herodians  and  Pharisees  had  been 
defeated,  it  seemed  to  some  of  the  Sadducees  that  they 
might  succeed  better.  The  Sadducees,  retaining  in 
one  of  their  families  the  right  to  the  high-priesthood, 
had  constituted  for  several  centuries  a  priestly  aris- 
tocracy which,  while  devotedly  attached  to  the  law 
as  it  had  been  established  by  Ezra  about  five  hundred 


The  Passion  283 

years  before  the  time  of  Jesus,  had  resisted  both  the 
additions  to  it  from  the  multitudinous  decisions  col- 
lected by  the  Pharisees,  and  known  as  the  "traditions 
of  the  elders, "  and  the  beliefs  concerning  angels,  devils, 
and  resurrection,  which  coming  originally  from  Persia, 
had,  in  the  later  centuries,  taken  fast  hold  of  a  large 
part  of  the  Jewish  people.  There  were,  therefore, 
frequent  disputes  between  them  and  the  Pharisees 
concerning  the  latter  beliefs.  As  it  was  known  that 
Jesus  shared  the  beliefs  of  the  Pharisees  and  the  common 
people  in  these  matters,  it  seemed  to  them  that  they 
might  bring  him  into  hopeless  perplexity  and  expose 
him  to  ridicule  by  laying  before  him  one  of  their  favour- 
ite problems,  over  which  they  had  no  doubt  often 
wrangled  with  the  Pharisees.  They  present  it  to  him 
as  a  matter  founded  on  the  law,  saying,  "Moses  wrote 
unto  us."  The  law  is  found  in  the  Book  of  Deuteron- 
omy (xxv,  5)  and  dates  from  the  time  of  Josiah,  but 
it  passed  as  a  law  of  Moses  and  neither  Jesus,  nor  any 
one  else  at  the  time,  knew  anything  to  the  contrary. 
A  woman  had  been  in  turn  the  wife  of  seven  brothers. 
Whose  wife  would  she  be  in  the  resurrection?  They 
thought  that  their  question  reduced  the  beUef  in  a 
Hfe  after  death  to  an  absurdity. 

It  was  a  sudden  and  unexpected  blow,  therefore, 
when  Jesus  asked  them  quietly:  "Do  you  not  err, 
because  you  know  not  the  Scriptures,  neither  the  power 
of  God?" 

He  explained  first  what  he  meant  by  "the  power  of 
God."  "When  they  shall  rise  from  the  dead,  they 
neither  marry,  nor  are  given  in  marriage;  but  are  as 
the  angels,  which  are  in  heaven."  The  answer  of  Jesus 
is  most  interesting,  because  it  probably  shows  his 
actual  belief,  as  he  had  worked  it  out  in  his  own  mind. 


1 


284  The  Historic  Jesus 

The  Kingdom  of  God,  which  he  preached,  was  to 
be  estabHshed  in  this  world,  and  material  things  and 
occupations  would  continue,  only  under  happier 
conditions;  but  beyond  the  earthly  kingdom  was  a 
heavenly  life  in  which  many  of  the  present  conditions 
would  be  changed.  That  the  Sadducees  did  not  realise 
this  showed  that  they  did  not  know  the  power  of  God, 
who,  as  we  should  say  to-day,  was  able  to  adjust  life 
to  its  environment. 

Those  of  the  Jews  who  believed  in  a  futiu-e  Hfe 
had  been  unable  to  think  of  it  except  in  a  human 
body  and  under  complete  physical  conditions,  while 
Jesus  had  evidently  gone  way  beyond  Jewish  thought 
and  had  reached  a  behef  very  like  Paul's  later  belief  in 
a  spiritual  body,  or  Hke  the  Greek  beHef  in  the  im- 
mortality of  the  soul,  leaving  it  to  the  "power  of 
God  "  to  provide  a  body  which  should  express  the  larger 
personality. 

It  had  become  clear  to  him  that,  in  a  world  where 
people  did  not  die,  marriage  would  be  unnecessary, 
since  it  was  only  a  means  for  keeping  up  the  population 
in  a  world  where  people  did  die. 

He  spoke  of  "rising  from  the  dead,"  because  that 
was  the  expression  in  common  use,  but  it  meant  to 
him  very  mLch  more  than  the  restoration  of  physical 
life,  as  is  evident  from  his  saying  that  men  would  be 
"as  the  angels,"  whom  he,  and  all  except  the  Sadducees, 
thought  of  as  a  class  of  beings  of  a  higher  order  than  men. 

His  argument  from  the  Scriptures  was  remarkable. 
They  all  believed  that  God  had  spoken  to  Moses  and 
had  called  himself  the  God  of  Abraham,  Isaac,  and 
Jacob.  Jesus  argued  that  Abraham,  Isaac,  and  Jacob 
must  be  alive,  because  God  would  not  call  himself  the 
God  of  men  who  were   dead.     It  was  the  ordinary 


The  Passion  285 

rabbinical  mode  of  argument  from  the  Scriptures. 
He  had  beaten  them  on  their  own  ground,  out  of  their 
own  beliefs,  by  the  use  of  their  own  weapons,  and  fin- 
ished their  discomfiture  with  the  words — "Ye  there- 
fore do  greatly  err." 

§  LXIII:  Mark  xii,  28-34;  Luke  x,  25-28;  Matt,  xxii, 

34-40 

Jesus  had  won  a  remarkable  victory  over  all  parties, 
and  had  created  a  profound  impression  by  the  ability 
with  which  he  had  parried  the  attacks,  as  is  evident 
from  the  fact  that  a  scribe  came  to  him  to  ask  which 
was  the  first  commandment  of  all.  This  was  an  honest 
man  who  came  with  honest  intent,  and  not  a  "lawyer" 
who  had  thought  out  a  new  way  to  entrap  him,  as 
Luke  and  Matthew  imagined  afterwards.  This  man 
really  wanted  to  know  what  Jesus  would  say,  for  there 
was  sometimes  a  conflict  of  laws  and  the  question  often 
arose  as  to  which  should  take  precedence.  Jesus 
answered  that  the  great  creed  of  Israel  was  the  first 
of  all  the  commandments.  This  was  the  Shema,  so 
called  from  its  first  word.  It  was  recorded  in  the  Book 
of  Deuteronomy  (vi,  4,  5)  and  read — "Hear,  O  Israel: 
Jahveh  our  God  is  one  Jahveh:  and  thou  shalt  love 
Jahveh  thy  God  with  all  thine  heart  and  with  all 
thy  soul  and  with  all  thy  might."  This  law,  written 
very  fine  on  narrow  strips,  and  enclosed  in  small  metal 
cubes,  was  worn  strapped  upon  the  left  arm  and  upon 
the  forehead.  These  were  the  phylacteries.  It  was 
also  inscribed  upon  a  parchment  roll  and  kept  in  a  box 
at  the  right  door-post  of  every  house  and  of  every  room. 
It  was  repeated  night  and  morning,  and  yet  it  was  a 
dead  letter,  for  the  Jewish  religion  was  built  entirely 


286  The  Historic  Jesus 

upon  the  fear  of  God,  and  what  passed  among  the  Jews 
for  the  love  of  God  was  only  a  form  of  race  egoism. 

Jesus  showed  by  his  answer  his  belief  that  mono- 
theism, actually  realised  in  the  consciousness  and 
developed  into  a  personal  love  of  God,  was  the  founda- 
tion of  all  religion,  but  he  at  once  added  a  second  law, 
which  he  said  was  like  the  first:  "Thou  shalt  love 
thy  neighbour  as  thyself."  This  was  biiried  and 
forgotten  in  the  Book  of  Leviticus  (xix,  i8).  The 
resurrection  of  this  law  and  the  putting  of  it  on  an 
equality  with  the  law  of  the  love  of  God  made  the 
teaching  of  Jesus  unique  in  this  respect  and  has  always 
been  the  great  source  of  its  power;  for  most  of  the 
things  which  the  Jews  held  to  be  of  the  greatest 
importance,  laws  of  worship  and  sacrifice,  of  fastings, 
tithes,  purifications,  foods,  and  the  Sabbath,  were 
ignored  as  of  at  least  secondary  importance,  while 
the  love  of  God  and  of  man  were  made  of  equal 
importance. 

The  scribe  was  surprised.  He  saw  what  a  complete 
departure  the  teaching  of  Jesus  was  from  the  com- 
monly accepted  ideas,  and  yet,  being  an  intelligent  and 
sincere  man,  he  recognised  its  universal  appHcation  and 
wonderful  possibilities.  His  answer  shows  how  com- 
pletely he  had  been  won.  "To  love  God  and  one's 
neighbour  is  more  than  whole  burnt-offerings  and 
sacrifices."  He  saw  that  the  teaching  of  Jesus  would 
abolish  the  temple,  the  priesthood,  and  the  sacrifices — 
in  fact,  the  whole  Jewish  religion.  Jesus  recognises 
the  reality  of  his  new  convictions  and  tells  him  that  he 
is  not  far  from  the  Kingdom  of  God. 

Luke  altered  the  earlier  narrative,  so  as  to  make  the 
"lawyer,"  instead  of  Jesus,  answer  the  question, 
apparently  to  give  him  an  opportunity  to  ask   the 


The  Passion  287 

new  question — "Who  is  my  neighbour?" — and  so  to 
introduce  the  story  of  the  Good  Samaritan.  He  never 
hesitated  to  alter  history  for  the  sake  of  literary  effect. 
It  certainly  seems  a  great  misfortune  that  the  whole 
Christian  world,  instead  of  giving  the  place  of  supreme 
importance  to  this  grand  teaching  of  Jesus  which  covers 
the  whole  duty  of  man,  should  have  given  the  imperfect 
Jewish  code,  known  as  the  "Ten  Commandments," 
the  chief  place,  and  regarded  the  teaching  of  Jesus  as 
only  a  "Summary"  of  it;  for  the  Ten  Commandments 
distinctly  recognise  polytheism,  teach  the  fear  of  God 
instead  of  the  love  of  God,  prohibit  art,  and  do  not 
forbid  lying,  except  that  one  Jew  may  not  testify 
falsely  against  another  Jew  in  court.  It  is  time  that 
the  teaching  of  Jesus  acquired  its  proper  place  and 
became  the  Hght  and  power  by  which  men  live. 

§  LXIV:  Mark  xii,  35-37;  Luke  xx,  41-44;  Matt,  xxii, 

41-46 

No  one  dared  to  ask  him  any  more  questions,  but 
Jesus  became  the  questioner  in  turn  and,  becoming 
aggressive,  began  to  denounce  the  absurdities  and 
hypocrisies  of  the  scribes.  The  only  question  recorded 
was  apparently  unanswerable  from  the  point  of  view 
of  the  scribes.  At  least,  no  answer  is  given.  "How 
say  the  scribes,  he  asked  them,  that  the  Messiah  is  the 
son  of  David?  For  David  himself  said  by  the  Holy 
Ghost — "  Jahveh  said  to  my  Lord,  Sit  thou  on  my  right 
hand,  till  I  make  thine  enemies  thy  footstool.  David 
therefore  calleth  him  Lord:  and  whence  is  he  then  his 
son?"  It  is  very  generally  held  by  the  commentators 
that,  in  asking  this  question,  Jesus  referred  to  himself 
and  was  preparing  the  way  for  his  acceptance  as  the 


288  The  Historic  Jesus 

Messiah,  although  he  and  everyone  knew  that  he  was 
not  a  descendant  of  David,  and  yet  there  is  nothing 
in  the  record  to  warrant  this  construction  of  the 
question.  Considered  apart  from  all  preconceptions, 
it  would  seem  as  if  this  question  were  intended  simply 
to  increase  the  discomfiture  of  the  scribes. 

Jesus  never  considered  himself  and  made  no  claims 
for  personal  recognition.  His  whole  soul  was  bound 
up  in  the  coming  of  the  Kingdom  of  God  and  he  had 
no  thought  for  anything  else.  His  acts  and  words 
since  coming  to  Jerusalem  had  had  reference  solely 
to  that  great  event,  and  he  certainly  did  not  descend 
from  devotion  to  his  supreme  ideal,  on  the  very  verge 
of  his  apparent  victory,  to  seek  to  persuade  men 
that  he  might  really  be  the  Messiah,  although  he  did 
not  fulfil  one  of  the  supposed  requirements  by  being 
a  descendant  of  David.  His  disciples  had  concluded 
that  he  must  be  the  Messiah,  but  he  had  charged  them 
not  to  talk  about  it.  As  for  himself  he  did  not  care 
whether  he  were  the  Messiah  or  not,  and  the  question 
did  not  interest  him.  If  it  should  please  God  to  make 
him  the  Messiah,  it  would  be  well,  but  meanwhile 
he  was  interested  in  what  was  to  him  very  much  more 
important,  the  moral  conversion  of  the  Jewish  people 
into  fitness  for  the  coming  Kingdom. 

As  regards  the  question  itself,  both  it  and  the  method 
employed  were  entirely  rabbinical,  and  the  incom- 
petence of  the  scribes  in  interpreting  the  Scriptures 
being  made  evident  to  the  multitude  in  the  temple, 
was  most  humiliating  to  them. 

Ever  since  a  majority  of  the  Jewish  people  had  taken 
up  the  notion  of  a  Messiah  who  was  to  deliver  them 
from  foreign  dominion  and  re-establish  the  Jewish 
kingdom — that  is,  during  the  preceding  hundred  years. 


The  Passion  289 

the  scribes  had  been  diligent  in  misinterpreting  every 
possible  passage  of  their  older  Scriptures  to  suit  the 
new  belief. 

As  most  of  the  older  prophets  had  prophesied  that 
a  new  king,  generally  said  to  be  descended  from  David, 
would  very  soon,  in  their  own  day,  put  an  end  to  the 
oppression  and  restore  the  Kingdom,  and  as  none  of 
these  prophesies  had  been  fulfilled,  their  limitation 
to  ages  long  past  was  ignored  and  out  of  them  a  picture 
was  constructed  of  an  anointed  king  yet  to  come. 
The  scribes,  too,  had  a  very  simple  and  convenient 
method  of  antedating  the  composition  of  their  sacred 
books.  According  to  them,  Moses  wrote  the  Penta- 
teuch and  David  the  Psalms,  and  not  only  did  they 
thereby  mislead  the  Jewish  people,  but,  until  very 
recently,  their  mixture  of  delusion  and  deception  has 
continued  to  impose  upon  the  whole  Christian  world. 
The  iioth  Psalm  was  written  in  adulation  of  a  Macca- 
bean  prince  nearly  900  years  after  David's  time, 
for  whom  the  writer  anticipated  a  remarkable  success, 
but  the  scribes  at  the  time  of  Jesus  were  sure  both 
that  David  wrote  it  and  that  it  referred  to  a  Messiah. 
Jesus  did  not  doubt  the  interpretation  of  the  Scriptures 
which  he  had  been  taught,  but  he  discovered  in  this 
Psalm,  as  applied  to  an  imaginary  Messiah,  a  problem 
which  would  leave  the  scribes  in  confusion. 

How  could  the  Messiah  be  the  son  of  David,  when 
David  himself  called  him  Lord?  They  simply  could 
not  tell. 

In  view  of  these  considerations,  the  popular  inter- 
pretation that  Jesus  knew  himself  to  be  the  Messiah 
although  he  was  not  descended  from  David,  the  line 
being  long  since  extinct,  but  undertook  to  show  that 
such  descent  was  unnecessary  and,  therefore,  that  he 


290  The  Historic  Jesus 

could  be  the  Messiah  nevertheless,  is  mildly  ingenious, 
but  it  unfortunately  belittles  Jesus  and  derogates  from 
his  supreme  absorption  in  a  grand  ideal. 

Another  theory  which  the  theologians  have  developed 
out  of  Matthew's  version  is  worse.  According  to  them , 
and  perhaps  Matthew  so  intended  to  represent  the 
question,  Jesus  accepted  both  the  belief  that  he  was 
the  Messiah  and  that  the  Messiah  was  of  necessity 
a  descendant  of  David  and  that  he  simply  propounded 
to  the  scribes  the  theological  problem  how  they  would 
account  for  it  that  the  Messiah  could  be  at  the  same 
time  both  David's  son  and  David's  Lord,  hoping  that 
they  might  discern  that  the  Messiah  was  to  be  the  son 
of  David  acccording  to  the  flesh  and  the  Son  of  God 
according  to  the  spirit,  thus  laying  the  foundation  for 
the  later  ecclesiastical  doctrine  of  two  natures  in 
Christ.     This  is  simply  theological  legerdemain. 

§  LXV:  Mark  xii,  38-40;  Luke  xx,  45-47;  Matt,  xxiii 

It  is  said,  in  connection  with  this  question  addressed 
to  the  scribes  and  as  a  result  of  it,  that  "the  common 
people  heard  him  gladly,"  which  makes  it  evident  that 
our  interprf^tation  of  this  narrative  is  true.  The 
people  at  large  are  seldom  interested  in  theological 
controversies,  but  they  have  an  unspoiled  sense  for 
the  detection  of  unreality  and  hypocrisy.  However 
subservient  they  may  be  to  their  "spiritual"  guides, 
they  know,  when  they  are  frauds  and  are  glad  to  have 
them  exposed.  It  must  have  been  so  in  this  case. 
Thousands  among  the  Jewish  people  must  have  felt, 
without  being  able  to  define,  the  unreality  of  their  re- 
ligious teachers,  and  deep  down  in  their  hearts,  many  of 
those  present  on   this  occasion  must  have  been  glad 


The  Passion  291 

to  see  the  scribes  put  into  a  position  from  which  they 
could  not  extricate  themselves.  Jesus  followed  up  his 
advantage  by  tiiming  to  them  with  the  words — 
"Beware  of  the  scribes."  He  thus  completed  his 
attack  upon  the  whole  Jewish  system  of  religion. 
He  had  already  denounced  the  sacrifices  and  had  told 
the  priests  that  their  day  was  over.  He  now  turned 
to  the  common  people  arid  warned  them  against  the 
theologians,  the  official  and  authoritative  expounders 
of  the  law.  There  were,  undoubtedly,  good  and  honest 
scribes,  for,  under  any  system  of  religion,  there  are 
always  men  who  are  better  than  the  system,  but 
the  system  itself  bred  hypocrisy  and  no  doubt  the 
majority  of  the  scribes  deserved  the  full  measure  of 
the  criticism  of  Jesus.  He  recalled  to  the  minds  of 
his  hearers  how  they  Hked  to  be  distinguished  by  their 
clothes,  as  a  class  apart  from  ordinary  men,  how  they 
expected  to  have  deference  shown  them  in  public, 
how  they  took  the  most  prominent  places  in  the 
synagogues  and  expected  to  have  the  best  seats  reserved 
for  them  in  social  gatherings,  not  for  any  deserts 
or  value  of  their  own,  but  simply  on  account  of  "the 
cloth";  and  then  what  frauds  and  robbers  they  were, 
how  they  went  and  quartered  themselves  upon  light- 
minded  widows  and  lived  off  of  them,  under  the  pre- 
tence that  their  prayers  would  be  of  great  value  to 
their  foolish  dupes.  Having  uncovered  their  hypocrisy, 
Jesus  assured  his  hearers  that  their  religious  teachers, 
the  men  whom  they  had  been  taught  from  childhood 
to  revere  as  the  authorised  exponents  of  the  law  of 
God,  would  receive  the  greatest  possible  punishment 
at  the  judgment  which  would  precede  the  establishment 
of  the  Kingdom  of  God.  It  would  be  impossible  for 
us  to  realise  the  effect  of  such  a  sweeping  denunciation. 


292  The  Historic  Jesus 

nor  do  we  begin  to  appreciate,  at  this  day,  the  import 
of  such  apparently  simple  words  as — "Beware  of  the 
scribes,"  for  they  implied  nothing  less  than  a  complete 
reHgious  revolution.  Jesus  appealed  from  external 
authority  in  religion  to  the  internal  authority  of  an 
awakening  and  awakened  intelligence  and  conscience. 
Herein  was  his  greatness  as  the  builder  of  religion 
for  all  time.  He  realised  that  it  must  be  the  result 
of  a  power  unfolding  from  within,  the  actual  blossom- 
ing out  of  the  mystery  of  b'fe  hidden  in  the  soul,  and 
not  a  conformity  in  belief  and  conduct  to  any  au- 
thority imposing  itself  from  without.  Herein  also 
lies  the  permanent  vitality  and  power  of  the  religion 
of  Jesus,  that  it  asserts  the  divine  nobility  of  manhood, 
recognising  the  right  and  privilege  of  every  individual 
to  develop  his  life  in  accordance  with  the  will  of 
God. 

The  talk  of  Jesus  to  the  people  at  this  time  was 
certainly  very  much  longer  than  the  brief  compendium 
of  it  given  by  Mark  and  copied  by  Luke.  Matthew 
afterwards  introduced  a  long  address  made  up  from 
various  sources  and  from  talks  on  different  occasions, 
and  yet  some  parts  of  it  may  have  belonged  to  this 
talk  to  the  people. 

It  is  not  possible,  as  Matthew  states,  that  Jesus 
made  a  distinction  between  the  scribes  as  authorised 
teachers  of  reUgion  and  the  scribes  as  hypocrites, 
telling  the  people  that  they  must  obey  them  but  not 
copy  them.-  Jesus  was  too  much  in  earnest  to  imagine 
that  a  bad  man  could  be  a  good  teacher,  or  that  a 
bad  system  could  produce  good  results.  During  the 
earlier  days  in  Galilee  he  had  come  into  contact  with 
the  additions  to  the  law,  known  as  "the  tradition  of 
the  elders, "  and,  in  opposing  these  additions,  felt  that 


The  Passion  293 

he  was  an  upholder  of  the  law,  but,  after  seeing  more 
of  the  scribes  and  learning  the  hollowness  of  any  religion 
which  could  grow  out  of  their  teaching,  and  especially- 
after  having  directly  interfered  with  the  law  of  sacrifice 
by  driving  out  the  animals  from  the  court  of  the  temple, 
he  certainly  did  not  tell  these  people  that  they  must 
keep  the  whole  law  as  the  scribes  expounded  it  to  them. 
Matthew  mistook  the  earlier  attitude  of  Jesus  for 
his  permanent  one,  ignoring  the  fact  that  his  thought 
grew  as  his  experience  widened  and,  fiu*thermore, 
when  Matthew's  Gospel  was  written,  the  ideas  of  a 
hierarchy  and  sacrifices  and  ecclesiastical  authority 
had  already  invaded  and  pervaded  the  Christian  ranks, 
so  that  the  altered  customs  made  it  desirable  for  the 
amended  Gospel  to  show  that  Jesus  was  strongly  on 
the  side  of  ecclesiasticism,  which  is  as  far  as  possible 
from  the  truth. 

According  to  Matthew,  Jesus  told  the  people  that 
they  ought  to  carry  the  "heavy  and  grievous"  burdens 
which  the  scribes  laid  upon  them,  although  the  latter 
would  not  "move  them  with  one  of  their  fingers," 
because  they  sat  in  Moses'  seat  and  therefore  taught 
with  divine  authority.  This  was  a  total  perversion 
of  his  teaching.  The  criticism  of  the  scribes  in  verses 
5,  6,  and  7  agrees  with  the  teaching  given  by  Mark, 
as  belonging  to  this  occasion,  but  in  the  8th  verse 
the  narrative  of  Matthew  introduces  personal  instruc- 
tion of  the  disciples  which  had  no  connection  with  his 
talk  to  the  crowd  in  the  temple. 

The  long  harangue  against  the  scribes  and  Pharisees, 
beginning  with  the  13th  verse,  is  no  doubt  a  fairly 
accurate  record  of  what  Jesus  said  on  this  occasion, 
and  was  taken  from  one  of  the  earlier  Palestinian 
Gospels,    or   collections   of   the    "Sayings   of   Jesus." 


294  The  Historic  Jesus 

It  certainly  represents  his  mood  and  his  attitude  at 
this  time,  and  never  in  all  history  was  there  so  terrific 
an  arraignment  of  the  religious  guides  of  a  people 
as  frauds  in  themselves  and  obstacles  in  the  way  of 
a  higher  religious  development,  Jesus  recalled  with 
bitterness  and  grief  how,  ever  since  the  beginning  of 
his  work,  these  men,  who,  because  they  were  the 
recognised  teachers  and  exponents  of  religion,  should 
have  welcomed  and  believed  him  and  led  the  way 
towards  a  higher  religious  growth  among  the  people, 
had  not  only  hardened  their  own  hearts  against  him, 
but  had  used  their  influence  to  bar  the  way  for  thousands 
of  the  Jewish  people  who  would  have  taken  his  message 
to  heart  and  developed  a  fitness  for  the  Kingdom  of 
God.  The  same  sad  experience  of  Jesus  has  been 
repeated  many  times  in  subsequent  history,  since 
organised  authority  does  not  like  to  lose  its  power; 
for,  whenever,  in  the  slow  unfolding  of  humanity, 
the  light  that  is  struggling  for  entrance  to  the  human 
mind  grows  brighter  and  stronger  than  the  limits 
established  for  it  by  ecclesiastical  authority,  the  same 
pitiful  tragedy  is  repeated  again  and  the  religious  leaders 
of  men  neither  go  in  themselves,  nor  suffer  those  who 
are  entering  to  go  in.  Nor  is  there  any  breaking  of 
the  deadlock,  except  as  individual  hearts  hear  the 
echo  of  the  words  of  Jesus  in  the  temple — "Beware  of 
the  scribes,"  and  then,  lest  finding  themselves  adrift 
they  seek  new  bondage,  hear  his  words  to  them  as 
disciples — '.'Have  salt  in  yourselves." 

It  is  not  the  "meek  and  gentle"  Jesus  of  popular 
tradition  who  called  the  reHgious  teachers  of  the  Jewish 
people  "children  of  hell,"  but  a  great-souled  prophet 
filled  with  indignation  and  wrath  against  men  who 
abused  their  authority  to  prevent  the  religious  growth 


The  Passion  295 

of  a  nation  and,  as  often  occurs,  made  their  proselytes 
models  of  fanaticism. 

How  hopelessly  corrupt  men  were  who  could  reduce 
fraud  to  a  fine  art,  deceiving  the  people  by  swearing 
by  the  temple  and  holding  the  oath  not  binding  because 
they  had  not  swom  by  the  gold  of  the  temple!  How 
completely  dead  was  the  moral  consciousness  of  men 
who  made  a  serious  matter  of  paying  tithes  on  a  few 
weeds  out  of  their  gardens  and  were  dishonest  in 
business  and  unmerciful  in  dealing  with  men!  Jesus 
certainly  never  said  about  the  tithes  of  mint  and 
anise  and  cimimin — "These  ought  ye  to  have  done." 
His  recognition  of  righteousness  as  a  spontaneity,  a 
fountain  of  living  water  springing  up  in  the  soul,  had 
set  him  free  from  the  law  and  all  the  petty  quibbles 
and  applications  of  its  teachers.  The  writer  of 
Matthew's  Gospel,  while  reporting  some  of  the  sayings 
of  Jesus  as  he  foimd  them  in  earlier  records,  was  very 
far  from  appreciating  their  spirit  or  import. 

How  the  soul  of  Jesus  revolted  against  people  who 
could  magnify  a  petty  observance  and  yet  did  not 
hesitate  at  crime;  how  he  hated  the  hypocrisy  which 
made  a  show  of  artificial  piety  and  yet  was  the  mask 
of  a  sordid  and  corrupt  heart ;  and  what  a  tremendous 
impression  there  must  have  been  among  the  crowd  in 
the  temple  as  blow  after  blow  was  delivered  against 
their  religious  leaders  and  they  heard  them  told,  at 
last,  face  to  face,  that  they  were  full  of  hypocrisy  and 
iniquity ! 

Jesus  believed  that  the  wickedness  of  all  the  past 
centuries  would  soon  culminate  in  a  crisis,  the  judgment 
and  destruction  which  would  precede  the  establishment 
of  the  Kingdom  of  God,  and  no  doubt  very  properly 
ended   his   great   harangue   against    the    scribes   and 


296  The  Historic  Jesus 

Pharisees  by  declaring  that  their  day  was  about  over 
and  that  they  were  hastening  to  their  destruction; 
and  yet  the  form  in  which  this  is  recorded  belongs  to 
a  later  date  and  shows  an  adjustment  to  events  which 
had  not  then  occurred ;  for  the  suggestion  of  persecutions 
has  reference  to  the  experiences  of  the  early  Christians 
in  Palestine  at  a  time  when  Jesus  expected  not  per- 
secutions but  the  joy  and  glory  of  the  established 
Kingdom  of  God,  while  the  mention  of  Zachariah 
concerns  an  event  of  the  year  67  or  68  A.D.,  as  is 
evident  from  Josephus  (B,  J.,  iv,  5,  4). 

The  lamentation  over  Jerusalem  would  seem  to  make 
a  fit  ending  to  this  impassioned  harangue  and  was 
evidently  misplaced  by  Luke  (xii,  34).  It  does  not 
prophesy  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem,  as  many  have 
thought,  nor  the  "  second  coming"  of  Jesus,  as  the 
theologians  have  imagined,  but  declares  the  over- 
whelming faith  of  Jesus  in  the  immediate  coming  of 
the  Kingdom  of  God.  He  had  interfered  with  the  sac- 
rifices and  had  told  the  priests  that  God  would  let 
out  the  vineyard  to  others;  he  had  imcovered  the  hy- 
pocrisy and  trickery  of  the  scribes  and  had  denounced 
them  before  the  multitude.  He  had  thereby  thrown 
confusion  in^^o  the  whole  Jewish  religion,  as  both  a 
sacrificial  and  a  legal  system.  Well  might  he  say  to 
the  crowd  which  heard  him  in  the  temple  that  their 
house  was  left  unto  them  desolate!  As  for  himself, 
he  felt  that  he  had  finished  his  work.  There  was 
nothing  mare  that  he  could  do,  and  he  would  leave  the 
result  with  God,  not  returning  to  the  temple  until 
God  was  ready  to  introduce  his  Kingdom  and  the 
people  of  Jerusalem,  believing  his  message,  should 
welcome  him  with  the  glad  acclamation — "Blessed  is 
he  that  cometh  in  the  name  of  the  Lord." 


The  Passion  297 

§  LXVI:  Mark  xii,  41-44;  Luke  xxi,  1-4 

On  one  of  the  days  in  the  temple,  Jesus  called  his 
disciples'  attention  to  the  people  as  they  cast  their 
gifts  into  the  treasury.  There  were  several  trumpet- 
shaped  openings  on  one  of  the  walls,  into  which  money 
was  dropped  for  different  objects.  As  they  watched 
the  passing  crowd  and  saw  the  ostentatious  manner 
in  which  many  of  the  Pharisees  put  something  into 
each  opening,  there  came  by  a  woman,  who  was 
evidently  very  poor,  and  dropped  something  into  one 
of  them  and  went  modestly  away.  Jesus  judged  from 
her  poor  appearance  that  she  had  given  the  only 
coin  she  had,  and  made  her  act  an  illustration  to  the 
disciples  of  the  spirit  of  giving  and  the  value  of  gifts. 
The  majority  had  given  something  from  their  super- 
fluity, so  that  they  did  not  feel  the  difference,  while 
she  had  probably  given  all  she  had.  He  certainly  did 
not  mean  to  teach  that  everyone  ought  to  give  away 
his  whole  property  to  be  administered  by  the  religious 
authorities,  but  that  everyone,  rich  and  poor,  ought 
to  feel  a  personal  interest  in  the  general  welfare  and 
do  his  full  share  in  carrying  the  burden  of  humanity, 
generously,  intelligently,  and  modestly. 

§  LXVI  I:  Mark  xiii,  1-2;  Luke  xxi,  5,6;  Matt,  xxiv,  1,2 

During  the  three  days  in  Jerusalem,  Jesus  had 
expressed  his  belief  in  unmistakable  language  that  the 
Jewish  religion  had  reached  its  final  crisis  and  could 
not  develop  the  sort  of  righteousness  which  was  required 
for  citizenship  in  the  Kingdom  of  God,  The  conclusion 
was  irresistible  that  the  temple,  being  of  no  further  use, 
would  gradually  fall  into  ruin.  The  disciples  had  been 
very  much  impressed  and,  as  they  left  it  with  him  on 
Wednesday  afternoon,  called  his  attention  to  the  great 


298  The  Historic  Jesus 

stones  of  the  outer  wall,  which  had  been  expected  to 
last  for  all  time.  Some  of  those  enormous  blocks, 
more  than  fifteen  feet  in  length,  are  among  the  per- 
manent wonders  of  the  world,  and  it  has  been  recently 
discovered  that  the  gigantic  foundations  were  built 
up  at  the  south-west  comer  from  a  depth  of  eighty 
feet  below  the  surface  of  the  soil.  Jesus  is  said  to  have 
replied  to  the  disciples  that  the  coming  destruction 
would  be  so  complete  that  one  stone  would  not  be  left 
upon  another.  That  he  said  this  is  altogether  im- 
probable. After  the  destruction  of  the  city  and  the 
temple,  the  Christians  Hked  to  believe  that  he  had 
foretold  both;  whereas  it  was  not  the  destruction 
but  the  purification  of  the  temple  which  he  anticipated 
and,  as  for  the  city,  he  expected  it  to  become  the  actual 
dwelling-place  of  God. 

§  LXVIIL,  Mark  xiii,  3, 4;  Luke  xxi,  7;  Matt,  xxiv,  3 

§  LXVIII,  I:  Mark  xiii,  5-13;  Luke  xxi,  8-16; 
Matt,  xxiv,  4-14 

The  reported  conversation  with  some  of  the  disciples 
is  a  composition  made  up  from  various  sources. 
Together  with  some  genuine  words  of  Jesus  which  it 
may  contain,  there  are  evidences  of  large  extracts 
from  some  popular  Apocalypse,  which  circulated  among 
the  Jews  at  the  time  and  expressed  their  beliefs,  together 
with  adaptations  to  later  beliefs  and  ideas.  Experi- 
ences of  early  Christian  days  in  Palestine,  supposed 
to  have  been  foretold  by  Jesus,  are  strangely  confused 
with  popular  notions  of  the  woes  and  calamities  which 
it  was  imagined  must  precede  the  coming  of  the  Messiah 
and  are  wrought  into  the  form  of  a  conversation  which 
is  altogether  unhistorical. 


The  Passion  299 

It  was  part  of  the  popular  tradition  that  wars, 
earthquakes,  famines,  and  other  calamities  would 
precede  the  coming  of  the  Messiah,  and  this  belief 
had  been  the  source  of  much  consolation  for  hundreds 
of  years,  enabling  the  Jews  to  discover  in  each  new  mis- 
fortune a  sure  "sign"  of  the  coming  deliverance  and 
victory.  Jesus  could  not  have  shared  the  popular 
belief,  because  he  was  so  sure  that  the  Kingdom  of 
God  would  come  before  his  generation  had  died  out 
that  there  was  hardly  time  for  the  development  of 
international  wars  on  any  large  scale,  nor  could  he 
have  predicted  the  appearance  of  false  Messiahs,  for 
although  he  was  not  interested  in  the  question  of  the 
Messiah,  as  concerned  himself,  he  fully  expected  to 
be  present  at  the  coming  of  the  Kingdom  and  to  have 
his  share  in  its  joy. 

He  did  not  tell  his  disciples  that  they  would  be 
delivered  up  to  councils  and  brought  before  rulers  and 
kings,  for  he  did  not  anticipate  a  propaganda  outside 
of  Judaea  and  Galilee.  This  was  an  idea  of  Paul's 
and  was  bitterly  opposed  by  the  disciples  who  main- 
tained the  true  tradition  of  the  teaching  of  Jesus. 
His  beUef  was  that  of  the  earlier  prophets,  that  the 
Kingdom  of  God  once  established  in  Jerusalem  would 
be  a  "light  to  lighten  the  Gentiles,"  who  would  come 
to  Jerusalem  to  learn  to  worship  God.  He  therefore 
did  not  tell  the  disciples  that  before  the  Kingdom  could 
come  the  Gospel  would  have  to  be  "published  among 
all  nations."  The  idea  of  a  world-wide  religion  was 
due  entirely  to  Paul,  but,  when  once  it  had  taken  hold 
of  the  Christian  consciousness  and  had  shown  such 
astonishing  results  it  became  inevitable,  in  the  second 
generation  after  Jesus,  that  men  should  imagine  that 
this  was  just  what  he  had  intended  and  predicted. 


300  The  Historic  Jesus 

^LXVIII.,  II:  Mark  xiii,  14-23;  Luke  xxi,  20-24; 
Matt,  xxiv,  15-28 

This  passage  is  commonly  imagined  to  predict  the 
destruction  of  Jerusalem  and  the  temple,  which  it 
certainly  does  not,  for  destruction  could  not  be  spoken 
of  a  "standing  where  it  ought  not,  nor  would  people 
be  warned  to  flee  after  such  an  event,  but  before  it." 
The  "abomination  of  desolation"  was  certainly  a 
familiar  expression,  taken  from  the  little  Apocalypses 
which  circulated  among  the  people.  It  had  come 
originally  from  the  Book  of  Daniel,  the  Septuagint 
version  (Latin  Vulgate,  abominatio  desolationis) ,  (ix,  2^]), 
and  referred  to  the  wrath  and  terror  which  convulsed 
the  Jewish  nation  when,  in  the  year  168  B.C.  Antiochus 
Epiphanes,  in  his  attempt  to  abolish  the  Jewish  religion, 
set  up  a  statue  of  Zeus  in  the  temple  and  offered  to  him 
a  great  sacrifice.  The  result  was  a  fearful  struggle, 
which  resulted  in  the  establishment  of  the  Maccabean 
kingdom.  The  horror  was  renewed  when,  in  the  year 
44  A.D,,  the  Emperor  Caligula  had  attempted  to  erect 
a  statue  of  himself  in  the  temple  and,  ever  since  his  day, 
the  Jewish  people  had  Uved  in  a  perpetual  nightm^are 
of  dread  lest  i"he  attempted  sacrilege  might  be  renewed. 

The  little  books  which  fanned  the  flames  of  fanaticism 
told  them  that,  if  this  dreadful  thing  occurred  again, 
they  were  to  flee  at  once  to  the  mountains,  not  stopping 
for  anything,  nor  returning  from  the  field  for  an  extra 
garment;  for  it  was  in  secluded  mountain  valleys  that 
the  Jews  organised  the  guerilla  bands  for  the  harassing 
of  the  legions  of  Rome.  The  early  Christians,  being 
Jews  and  intensely  Jewish,  retained  their  inherited 
fuel  of  fanaticism  and  easily  imagined  that  Jesus 
had  given  it  his  sanction. 


The  Passion  301 

§  LXVIII.,  Ill:  Mark  xiii,  24-27;  Luke  xxi,  25-28; 
Matt,  xxiv,  20-31 

Along  with  the  political  terrors  foretold  in  the 
Book  of  Daniel  (168  B.C.)  and  the  subsequent  Apoc- 
alypses, were  the  fearful  convulsions  of  nature,  which 
were  expected  to  precede  the  corning  of  the  Messiah. 
If  this  passage  had  been  of  Christian  origin,  it  would 
have  predicted  the  second  coming  of  Jesus  as  the  all- 
conquering  Messiah.  That  no  such  mention  is  made 
is  evidence  that  it  is  simply  a  popular  Jewish  Apoca- 
lypse adapted  and  assigned  to  Jesus  by  the  Christians. 
It  is  difficult  for  us  to  put  ourselves  into  the  mental 
attitude  of  these  people,  who  believed  all  these  things 
literally  and  intensely  and  interpreted  every  event  as 
a  possible  and  probable  sign  of  the  end.  They  certainly 
had  enough  in  the  Parthian  war,  in  the  earthquake  at 
Laodicea,  in  the  year  60  a.d.,  in  the  eruption  of 
Vesuvius,  which  destroyed  Herculaneum  and  Pompeii, 
in  the  year  62  a.d.,  and  in  the  wide-spread  famine, 
which  desolated  the  empire  in  the  reigns  of  Claudius 
and  Nero,  to  keep  them  in  a  constant  fever  of  excitement 
and  terror. 

§  LXVIII.,  +:   Mark  xiii,  28-j/;  Luke  xxi,  2Q-j6; 
Matt,  xxiv,  32-J6 

The  majority  of  the  Jewish  people  had  learned  from 
the  Book  of  Daniel,  which  they  took  seriously,  to  expect 
certain  unmistakable  "signs"  of  the  coming  of  their 
anticipated  Golden  Age. 

In  response  to  the  question  of  some  of  the  disciples 
about  "signs,"  Jesus  was  imagined  to  have  referred 
to  the  two  great  signs  predicted  in  the  Book  of  Daniel, 


302  The  Historic  Jesus 

the  "abomination  of  desolation,"  as  the  sign  of  the 
beginning  of  the  "woes,"  and  the  coming  of  the  "Son 
of  Man  in  the  clouds  with  power  and  great  glory"  as 
the  "sign"  of  deliverance  and  joy.  That,  however, 
he  was  not  interested  in  these  popular  delusions  and 
did  not  refer  to  them  is  evident  from  the  reported  lesson 
of  the  fig-tree,  which  seems  the  more  historically  true 
because  it  so  entirely  misinterpreted  in  the  Gospel. 
A  tree  showing  the  ordinary  process  of  nature  could 
not  be  made  to  illustrate  extraordinary  events  entirely 
outside  of  the  natural  order,  but,  when  used  to  illus- 
trate the  fact  that  coming  events  were  already  indi- 
cated by  present  conditions,  its  lesson  was  simple  and 
clear.  As  when  men  found  leaves  on  the  fig-trees, 
they  knew  that  summer  was  near,  so  any  intelligent 
observer  could  see  in  the  existing  state  of  Judaism 
abundant  signs  that  its  final  crisis  was  close  at  hand. 
Such  was  the  method  of  Jesus  in  teaching  and  such 
was  undoubtedly  his  answer  to  the  question  about 
"signs,"  which  he  implied  were  so  abundant  to  those 
who,  being  without  prejudice,  were  able  to  see  them 
that  the  Kingdom  must  certainly  come,  at  least 
within  thirty  years,  but  as  was  always  the  case  with 
him,  he  disclaimed  all  supernatural  knowledge.  God 
alone  knew  when  the  great  event  would  happen. 
The  words  "neither  the  Son,  but  the  Father"  are 
an  addition  from  later  theology.  The  conclusion 
from  the  belief  that  the  Kingdom  was  certainly  coming 
during  the  life  of  the  then  existing  generation  and  that 
no  one  could  know  when  it  would  come,  but  that  it 
might  come  any  day,  or  during  any  night,  was  that  it 
was  the  duty  of  those  who  believed  the  message  to  be 
always  ready  and  to  watch.  This  was  the  final  answer 
of  Jesus  to  the  question   when   these    things    would 


The  Passion  303 

come  to  pass  and  what   would  be   the   sign  of   their 
coming. 

Matt.  XXV,  1-13. 

Matthew  adds  to  his  report  of  this  conversation 
three  parables,  which  are  alterations  and  developments 
of  parables  told  upon  other  occasions.  The  parable 
of  the  ten  virgins  is  a  later  outgrowth  of  a  talk  which 
Jesus  had  had  previously  with  his  disciples  and  which 
is  given  by  Luke  (xii,  35-40)  in  the  words:  "Let  your 
loins  be  girded  about  and  your  lamps  burning;  and 
be  ye  yourselves  like  unto  men  looking  for  their  lord, 
when  he  shall  return  from  the  marriage  feast." 

While  the  details  suppHed  by  Matthew  are  perhaps 
not  in  conformity  with  actual  Oriental  customs,  the 
point  is  nevertheless  clear  that  Christians  were  to  live 
in  a  constant  state  of  readiness  and  expectation. 
The  delay  in  the  coming  of  the  bridegroom,  however, 
shows  that  the  parable,  in  this  form,  did  not  originate 
with  Jesus,  but  grew  out  of  the  exigencies  of  a  later 
age,  when  the  delayed  second  coming  of  Jesus,  which 
the  Christians  expected,  rendered  frequent  exhortations 
to  constant  patience  and  watchfulness  necessary. 

Mark  xiii,  34;  Luke  xix,  11-27;  Matt,  xxv,  14-30 

Matthew  also  made  some  changes  in  the  parable  of 
the  talents,  as  given  by  Luke.  Jesus,  in  the  original 
parable,  had  had  reference  to  the  coming  of  the 
Kingdom. 

It  would  be  preceded  by  a  rendering  of  accounts, 
for  it  would  be  "  as  when  a  man,  going  into  a  far  country, 
called  his  servants  and  dehvered  to  them  his  goods." 


304  The  Historic  Jesus 

At  the  judgment,  those  who  had  shown  ability  would 
be  rewarded  with  positions  of  increased  responsibility 
and  admitted  to  the  great  supper  which  would  inaug- 
urate the  establishment  of  the  Kingdom  of  God, 
for  this  was  what  was  meant  by  entering  into  the 
"joy"  of  the  lord.  The  Christians  afterwards  read 
into  this  parable  a  totally  different  meaning,  imagining 
that  by  the  "man  going  into  a  far  coimtry"  Jesus 
meant  himself  and  had  reference  to  his  expected 
ascension  and  second  coming.  All  Christendom  has 
followed  in  the  footsteps  of  the  early  blundering,  but 
we  may  be  perfectly  sure  that  no  such  thoughts  ever 
occurred  to  Jesus  at  all. 

Matt.  XXV,  31-46 

The  dramatic  picture  with  which  Matthew  closes 
this  long  instruction  shows  also  the  adaptation  of 
the  original  thought  of  Jesus  to  the  conditions  of  a 
new  age.  A  judgment  of  the  whole  world  formed  no 
part  of  his  anticipations;  but,  when  the  rapid  spread 
of  a  new  religion  brought  with  it  the  belief  in  a  universal 
judgment  as  a  natural  consequence,  the  teaching  of 
Jesus,  when  he  sent  out  the  disciples  to  preach  in 
Galilee,  was  applied  to  the  missionary  activities  of 
the  Christians  upon  a  larger  scale.  It  was  at  a  time 
when  many  were  turning  away  from  him  and  showing 
serious  hostility,  under  the  instigation  of  the  Pharisees, 
but  he  assured  his  disciples  that  those  who  were  brave 
and  kind  enough  to  give  them  a  drink  of  water,  because 
they  were  his  messengers,  would  certainly  not  lose 
their  reward  when  the  Kingdom  of  God  should  come. 
In  later  days,  when  Christian  missionaries  were  often 
hungry  and  thirsty  and  sometimes  sick  and  in  prison, 


The  Passion  305 

the  words  of  Jesus  were  recalled  and  it  seemed  as  if, 
foreseeing  the  new  state  of  things,  he  had  really  de- 
clared that  those  in  the  great  pagan  world  who  had 
had  compassion  on  his  missionaries  and  had  shown  it 
by  giving  them  food  and  drink,  in  giving  them  clothes 
when  they  had  been  robbed,  in  caring  for  them  in 
sickness,  and  in  visiting  them  in  prison,  would  be 
counted  in  among  those  who  should  hear  the  blessed 
words:  "Come  ye  blessed  of  my  Father,  inherit  the 
Kingdom  prepared  for  you  from  the  foundation  of 
the  world,"  while  the  King  would  say  to  them  in  their 
surprise:  "Inasmuch  as  ye  did  it  unto  one  of  these, 
my  brethren,  even  these  least,  ye  did  it  imto  me." 
This  is  a  most  remarkable  and  valuable  record  as 
showing  how  the  spirit  of  Jesus  influenced  many  of 
the  early  Christians  so  profoundly  as  to  make  them 
recognise  that  the  issues  of  life  were  moral,  not  dogmatic, 
and  that  men  would  be  judged  by  God  with  regard  to 
their  mental  and  emotional  attitudes,  their  characters 
and  their  deeds,  without  regard  to  their  opinions  and 
beliefs.  It  was  a  great  misfortune  for  the  world  that 
so  sweet  a  fruit  of  his  teaching  succumbed  gradually 
to  that  of  Paul,  that  the  destiny  of  men  depended  so 
greatly  upon  the  opinions,  beliefs,  and  dogmas  which 
they  held. 

§  LXIX:  Mark  xiv,  i,  2;  Luke  xxii,  i,  2;  Matt, 
xxvi,  IS 

It  had  been  clear  to  the  priests,  ever  since  the  attack 
of  Jesus  upon  the  sacrifices,  that  they  must  get  rid 
of  him  and  that  they  must  do  it  without  attracting 
attention,  on  account  of  the  vast  multitude  of  people 
from  all   over  the   empire   collected   at  Jerusalem  for 


3o6  The  Historic  Jesus 

the  Passover.  They  had  seen  how  much  sympathy 
and  support  he  had  won  among  those  already  gathered 
for  the  feast,  and  it  would  be  still  more  dangerous  to 
let  him  exercise  his  influence  over  the  greater  number 
still  to  arrive,  but  they  dared  not  arrest  him  publicly, 
lest  his  friends  should  rescue  him.  Nor  had  they  any 
right  to  put  any  one  to  death,  since  the  Romans  had 
taken  away  that  privilege.  Their  only  recourse  was 
to  hire  an  assassin  or  to  accuse  him  before  Pilate  as 
a  man  who  was  dangerous  to  the  Roman  Government- 
This  they  might  have  done  and  probably  would  have 
done  earlier  in  the  week,  but  they  were  obliged  to 
wait  for  the  arrival  of  Pilate,  who  lived  at  Caesarea 
and  came  up  to  Jerusalem  only  at  the  time  of  religious 
festivals,  in  order  to  be  on  hand  to  quell  any  riot  which 
might  grow  out  of  religious  fanaticism.  The  Pass- 
over began  on  Friday  evening.  Thursday  morning, 
therefore,  was  the  latest  time  for  completing  their 
plans  and  finding  some  way  for  arresting  Jesus  during 
that  night  and  hurrying  him  off  to  Pilate  and  to  exe- 
cution before  his  friends  could  be  aroused  to  effect  a 
rescue.  The  phrase  in  Mark's  Gospel,  "after  two 
days,"  evidently  comes  from  an  original  and  true 
tradition,  and  fixes  Friday  as  the  day  of  the  crucifixion. 
In  the  further  accoimt  Mark  is  not  true  to  this  date, 
but  makes  it  seem  as  if  the  crucifixion  must  have  taken 
place  on  Saturday,  which  is  impossible.  Luke  and 
Matthew  follow  him  in  this,  because,  owing  to  later 
theories  and  beliefs,  Jesus  celebrated  the  Passover 
with  his  disciples  on  Friday  night,  explaining  to  them 
at  that  time  that  his  death  was  to  be  the  founding  of 
a  "new  covenant."  The  author  of  the  fourth  Gospel, 
seeing  that  these  statements  could  not  be  historical, 
went  back  to  the  early  and  true  tradition  which  told 


The  Passion  307 

of  a  supper  which  Jesus  had  with  his  disciples  on 
Thursday  night,  which  was  not  a  Paschal  supper,  and 
showed  that  Friday  was  certainly  the  day  of  the 
crucifixion. 

Matthew's  Gospel  introduces  a  statement,  which 
was  not  in  the  earlier  tradition,  that  Jesus  said  to  his 
disciples,  "Ye  know  that  after  two  days  is  the  feast 
of  the  Passover,  and  the  Son  of  Man  is  betrayed  to  be 
crucified."  This  is  impossible  and  entirely  contrary  to 
the  facts.  Jesus  was  resting  on  Thiu-sday  in  Bethany 
after  three  days  of  intense  strain  in  Jerusalem.  He 
had  not  the  most  remote  idea  of  being  killed  nor  was 
he  conscious  of  serious  danger,  until  sometime  during 
the  day  a  friend  in  Jerusalem  sent  him  word  that  one 
of  his  disciples  had  agreed  to  betray  him  to  the  priests. 
He  had  already  arranged  with  a  friend  in  the  city  for 
the  use  of  a  large  room  where  he  could  keep  the 
Passover  on  Friday  night  with  the  disciples,  which 
makes  it  perfectly  evident  that  he  was  not  expecting 
to  be  killed.  When,  however,  he  heard  of  the  plot 
of  the  priests  and  the  treason  of  one  of  his  disciples, 
he  realised  that  it  was  necessary  for  them  to  separate 
and  to  find  their  way  back  to  Galilee,  either  singly  or 
in  small  groups,  but  he  would  make  use  of  the  room 
offered  him  for  one  final  supper  before  the  separation 
and  would  hold  it  that  same  evening,  instead  of  waiting 
for  the  intended  Paschal  Supper  on  Friday  night. 

LXX:  Mark  xiv,  j-p;  Matt,  xocvi,  6-ij 

On  one  of  the  evenings  in  the  earlier  part  of  the  week 
the  story  is  told  of  a  woman  with  an  alabaster  box 
of  ointment,  in  the  house  of  Simon  the  leper  at  Bethany. 
The  story  as  given  by  Mark  and  copied  by  Matthew 


3o8  The  Historic  Jesus 

cannot  be  true,  but  is  the  misplaced  and  misinterpreted 
narrative  of  what  occurred  on  a  different  occasion. 
It  is  said  that,  when  some  objected  to  the  waste,  Jesus 
declared  that  she  had  done  well  in  using  the  valuable 
perfumery  as  she  had,  because  she  had  devoted  it  to  the 
anointing  of  his  body  for  burial,  to  which  it  may  very 
properly  be  objected  that  no  one  would  have  thought 
of  anointing  a  body  for  burial  while  still  alive  and, 
furthermore,  that  Jesus  could  not  have  thought  of  his 
burial,  because  he  was  not  expecting  to  die.  He, 
moreover,  never  thought  of  himself  at  any  time  as 
having  a  unique  claim  to  personal  attentions  and  lavish 
expenditure.  One  could  not  imagine  the  disciples  sit- 
ting calmly  by  and  hearing  him  talk  about  his  burial  as 
the  most  natural  thing  in  the  worid  and  not  being  roused 
to  make  a  single  effort  to  save  him  from  his  enemies. 
They  had  come  to  Jerusalem  to  see  the  Kingdom  of 
God  come  and  not  as  passive  spectators  of  their  Master's 
death,  nor  can  one  imagine  how  the  woman  could  have 
acquired  information  which  no  one  else  possessed. 
Furthermore,  Jesus  could  not  have  spoken  of  the 
gospel's  being  preached  throughout  the  world,  for 
that  formed  no  part  of  his  anticipations.  The  gospel 
which  he  pr'^ached  was  the  good  news  that  the  King- 
dom of  God  was  coming,  whereas  the  word  as  used  in 
this  passage  means  the  narrative  concerning  Jesus, 
as  told  by  the  early  Christians  and  with  all  the  false 
interpretations  which  they  put  upon  it.  The  Christians 
were  very  naive  in  imagining  that  Jesus  had  said  that 
this  act  of  the  woman  would  be  spoken  of  through- 
out all  the  world,  when,  even  a  generation  after  the 
supposed  event,  no  one  of  them  could  tell  her  name. 
From  these  considerations  it  ought  to  be  evident  to 
any  one   that  the  early  Christians  found  it  convenient 


I 


The  Passion  309 

to  alter  the  details  of  a  true  tradition,  in  the  interest 
of  their  belief  that  Jesus  was  the  Messiah,  so  as  to 
make  it  seem  as  if  a  woman  had  been  supematurally 
impelled  to  recognise  his  Messiahship  by  anointing 
him  to  the  high  office  of  the  prophet  who  should  show 
the  way  of  God,  the  King  who  should  rule  in  God's 
name,  and  the  High  Priest  who  should  sacrifice  himself. 
Luke  foiuid  this  story  in  Mark's  Gospel  and  saw 
at  once  how  impossible  it  was.  He  must,  therefore, 
have  made  an  effort,  by  comparing  various  traditions, 
to  trace  it  back  to  an  earlier  source.  That  he  was 
successful  is  evident  from  the  fact  that  he  gives  an 
account  which  is  virtually  the  same  and  yet  is  not 
only  free  from  impossible  features,  but  contains  one 
of  the  most  valuable  lessons  of  all  the  teaching  of  Jesus. 

Luke  vii,  36-50 

A  Pharisee  invited  Jesus  to  a  meal  at  his  house  with 
some  of  his  friends.  While  they  were  reclining  about 
the  table,  a  woman  of  the  town  well  known  to  the  guests 
came  in  quietly  and,  kneeling  behind  him,  anointed 
his  feet  and  wept  over  them  and  wiped  them  with 
her  hair.  The  Pharisee  was  scandaHsed  and  said  to 
himself.  This  man  cannot  be  a  prophet,  or  he  would 
have  known  instinctively  what  sort  of  a  woman  this 
was  and  would  have  driven  her  away.  Jesus,  seeing 
what  was  passing  in  his  mind,  said,  "Simon,  I  have 
somewhat  to  say  unto  thee,  and  he  said.  Master, 
say  on.  A  certain  lender  had  two  debtors:  the  one 
owed  him  five  himdred  pence  and  the  other  fifty. 
When  they  had  not  wherewith  to  pay,  he  forgave  them 
both.  Which  of  them,  therefore,  will  love  him  most? 
Simon  answered  and  said.  He,  I  suppose,  to  whom  he 


3IO  The  Historic  Jesus 

forgave  most.  And  he  said  unto  him,  Thou  hast 
rightly  judged.  .  .  .  Wherefore  I  say  unto  thee, 
Her  sins,  which  are  many,  are  forgiven;  for  she  loved 
much:  but  to  whom  little  is  forgiven,  the  same  loveth 
little;  and  he  said  unto  her,  Thy  sins  are  forgiven." 
This  is  altogether  the  most  remarkable  of  all  the  sayings 
of  Jesus  and  so  entirely  original  and  unique  that  it 
carries  with  it  the  evidence  of  the  truth  of  this  narrative, 
for  it  is  nothing  less  than  the  declaration  of  a  great 
principle  which  has  been  sadly  overlooked.  Love 
sets  one  free  from  moral  evil.  The  love  of  what, 
of  whom?  This  had  been  a  bad  woman,  bad  from 
force  of  circumstances.  She  had  not  thought  of  the 
possibility  of  any  different  life  for  herself.  But  in 
Jesus  she  had  seen  a  perfectly  pure  life  realised  and  he 
had  thus  been  a  revelation  to  her  of  the  possibilities 
of  life,  of  her  Hfe.  She  had  listened  to  some  of  his 
wonderful  stories  of  how  God  forgave  his  repentant 
children  and  welcomed  their  return  and  her  whole 
soul  had  overflowed  with  joy  over  the  new  idealities 
and  possibilities  of  Hfe  which  he  had  opened  before  her. 
She  had  fallen  in  love  with  purity  and  goodness,  with 
her  own  possible  better  self,  with  the  God  who  forgave 
and  the  prophet  who  had  shown  her  the  way  of  life. 
The  new  pov  er  of  love  unfolding  in  her  soul  had  set 
her  free  from  the  force  of  sinful  habit.  Her  sins  were 
forgiven.  This,  then,  was  Jesus'  idea  of  forgiveness. 
It  was  emancipation  from  the  power  of  evil  habit 
through  the  greater  force  of  the  love  of  goodness 
working  in  the  heart,  a  purely  dynamic  process,  in 
place  of  the  legal  method  which  the  Jews  imagined. 
This  was  what  made  those  who  heard  him  take  offence, 
for  they  had  a  complete  system,  which  they  imagined 
that  God  had  devised  and  revealed,  for  the  forgive- 


The  Passion  311 

ness  of  sins.  A  prescribed  sacrifice  offered  through  a 
duly  authorised  priest  was  believed  to  be  necessary, 
before  God,  accepting  the  payment,  or  equivalent, 
or  substitution,  could  grant  forgiveness.  Men  could 
readily  understand  this  system,  because  it  was  so  Uke 
the  way  in  which  favours  were  obtained  from  kings 
and  courts  in  this  world,  but  they  could  not  understand 
the  dynamics  of  emancipation  which  Jesus  taught, 
nor  conceive  of  the  divine  forgiveness  apart  from 
all  judicial  and  priestly  machinery.  Although  this 
teaching  of  Jesus  has  stood  upon  the  pages  of  the 
Gospel  for  eighteen  centuries,  the  whole  Christian 
world  still  adheres  to  the  theories  of  the  Pharisees 
which  caused  them  to  take  offence  at  him.  For  whether, 
as  with  the  Catholics,  men  imagine  that  forgiveness 
is  dependent  upon  the  sacrifice  of  the  body  of  Jesus 
repeated  in  the  wafer,  believed  to  have  become  his 
body  by  the  magic  of  the  priest,  or,  as  with  the  Pro- 
testants, they  are  told  that  it  is  necessary  to"  accept 
the  atonement,"  beHeving  in  the  efficacy  of  the  sacrifice 
"once  offered"  for  the  forgiveness  of  sins,  both  the 
great  divisions  of  Christendom  stand  on  the  side  of 
the  enemies  of  Jesus  and  deny  one  of  the  most  import- 
ant and  fundamental  features  of  his  teaching.  When 
the  nightmare  of  Judaism  and  paganism,  which  still 
dominates  the  Christian  world,  shall  have  rolled  away, 
men  will  learn  with  joy  that  what  is  needed  for  the 
higher  evolution  of  the  human  race  is  not  priestcraft, 
a  mechanism,  a  judicial  process,  nor  a  dogma,  but  an 
environment,  such  an  environment  of  the  joy  and 
beauty  of  righteous  living  as  will  win  and  stimulate  the 
weaker  ones  to  follow  where  the  stronger  lead  and 
the  method  of  Jesus  for  the  evolution  of  life  will  become 
the  stimulus  of  millions  of  hearts:   "Let  your  light  so 


312  The  Historic  Jesus 

shine  among  men  that  they  may  see  your  good  works 
and  glorify  your  Father  in  Heaven." 

§  LXXI:  Mark  xiv,  lo-ii;  Luke  xxii,  j-6;  Matt, 
xxvi,  14-16 

Judas  undoubtedly  betrayed  Jesus.  A  generation 
later  the  Christians  imagined  and  taught  that  Jesus 
had  foreseen  the  betrayal  and  consequent  condemnation, 
that  he  had  told  his  disciples  of  his  expectations  before 
leaving  Galilee,  that  he  had  gone  to  Jerusalem  with 
this  result  in  view,  and  that  those  who  accompanied 
him  had  sundered  all  family  ties  and  given  up  all 
property  and  occupations  simply  that  they  might 
go  to  Jerusalem  to  become  the  helpless  and  dejected 
spectators  of  a  tragedy,  all  of  which  is  absolutely 
impossible.  For,  if  Jesus  knew  beforehand  what 
would  happen  to  him  in  Jerusalem,  it  could  have  been 
only  through  supernatural  knowledge  of  events  which 
were  already  part  of  a  prearranged  divine  economy. 
But,  if  things  happen  in  this  world  as  parts  of  a  divine 
plan  and  in  conformity  with  a  divine  decree,  then  there 
is  no  such  thing  as  moral  responsibility  and  no  one 
is  entitled  t-^  praise  or  blame  for  anything.  If  the 
betrayal  and  death  of  Jesus  were  parts  of  a  divine 
plan,  then  neither  Judas  nor  the  priests  were  to  blame, 
since  they  became  mere  passive  agents  for  the  execution 
of  divine  decrees,  and  our  ideas  of  right  and  wrong  with 
reference  to  human  actions  become  a  mere  delusion. 
The  Jewish  Christians  were  entirely  consistent  with 
the  fatalistic  ideas  which  are  inherent  in  the  Semitic 
mind,  feeling  that  Jesus  was  obliged  to  endure  what 
was  prescribed  for  him,  but,  beyond  his  death,  and  as 
a  result  of  it,  they  imagined  a  throne,  with  glory  and 


The  Passion  313 

authority  second  only  to  that  of  God,  and  they  went 
so  far  as  to  say  that  he  derived  courage  from  selfish 
motives  and  power  to  endure  from  the  "joy  that  was 
set  before  him."  (Heb.  xii,  2.)  This  is  positively 
shocking,  or  woiild  be  if  we  had  not  listened  thought- 
lessly to  it  all  our  lives.  When  our  Aryan  consciousness 
begins  to  revolt  against  the  traditional  custom  of 
mistaking  Jewish  thought  for  a  divine  revelation, 
the  whole  fatalistic  scheme,  as  applied  to  Jesus,  collapses. 
He  did  not  endure  the  cross,  despising  shame,  for  the 
joy  that  was  set  before  him  in  the  prospect  of  a  throne. 
He  did  not  feel  that  he  was  a  passive  agent,  merely 
playing  a  part  and  going  through  a  prearranged  role. 
He  did  not  expect  to  be  killed,  nor  go  to  Jerusalem  for 
the  purpose  of  being  killed,  nor  predict  his  death,  nor 
enlist  a  company  to  go  to  Jerusalem  as  witnesses  of 
it.  He  believed  most  profoundly  that  the  Kingdom 
of  God  was  really  coming  and  coming  very  soon,  that 
God  was  coming  in  person  to  establish  his  reign  in 
Jerusalem.  He  believed  it  to  be  his  mission  to  per- 
suade as  many  of  the  Jewish  people  as  possible  to 
acquire  the  better  righteousness,  which  he  felt  sure 
was  the  only  means  which  would  admit  them  to  the 
Kingdom  when  it  came.  In  Galilee  he  had  failed, 
losing  the  multitudes  which  had  flocked  to  him  at 
first  through  the  work  of  the  Pharisees,  who  would 
neither  go  in  themselves,  nor  suffer  those  who  were 
entering  to  go  in.  He  realised,  therefore,  that  there 
was  nothing  left  for  him  to  do  but  to  attack  Pharisaism 
in  its  stronghold  and,  exposing  theinsincerity,hypocris3% 
and  trickiness  of  the  scribes,  to  win  the  people  to  the 
cultivation  of  a  real  and  personal  moraHty.  Arrived 
at  Jerusalem,  he  found  another  obstacle  in  his  way, 
the  great  sacrificial  system  of  the  temple,  which,  like 


314  The  Historic  Jesus 

all  priestly  and  sacrificial  systems,  confused  and  dulled 
the  moral  consciousness  by  teaching  that  every  trans- 
gression could  be  offset  by  a  sacrifice.  The  sudden 
and  violent  interference  with  the  sacrificial  system 
became  therefore  a  necessary  preliminary  to  his  sub- 
sequent denunciation  of  the  scribes.  His  acts  are 
not  those  of  a  man  who  is  playing  a  role  or  who  is  a 
puppet  in  the  hands  of  a  superior  power,  but  of  a  man 
full  of  faith,  devotion,  and  enthusiasm,  sustained  and 
carried  along  by  the  heroism  and  courage  of  his  con- 
victions. It  was  inevitable,  after  the  first  day,  that 
the  priests  would  accomplish  his  death  at  the  earhest 
opportimity. 

It  is  quite  probable  that  they  were  aided  in  their 
plans  by  the  defection  of  Judas.  Why  did  Judas 
betray  him?  The  feeble  reasons  which  some  of  the 
Christians  gave  afterwards  are  entirely  inadequate. 
Luke  says  that  "Satan  entered  into  him."  If  there 
were  a  personal  devil,  which  there  is  not,  imless  the 
religion  of  the  Persians,  from  which  the  notion  came, 
be  a  divine  revelation,  then  Judas  was  not  responsible 
for  his  deed  and  all  our  ideas  of  hiiman  responsibility 
become  confused.  Matthew  does  not  seem  to  be  more 
successful  in  attempting  to  discover  the  cause  of  the 
act.  He  says  that  it  was  done  for  money,  that  Judas 
asked  the  priests  what  they  would  give  if  he  would 
disclose  the  hiding-place  of  Jesus  and  that  they  agreed 
to  give  him  thirty  pieces  of  silver.  This  is  altogether 
improbable;  for,  if  there  were  any  money  transaction, 
it  could  never  have  been  known,  except  to  Judas  and 
the  priests.  But  that  money  entered  into  the  ques- 
tion at  all  is  also  improbable,  for  Judas  was  one  of  the 
twelve,  which  certainly  means  that  he  had  made  all  the 
renunciations   and  endured   all   the   privations  which 


The  Passion  3^5 

Jesus  required  of  those  who  were  wining  to  undertake 
the  dangerous  journey  with  him  to  Jerusalem.  Judas, 
therefore,  was  an  enthusiast,  a  devotee,  and  his  very 
act  of  betrayal  is  another  evidence  that  Jesus  had  not 
expected  to  die  and  had  not  told  the  disciples  of  any 
such  expectation,  Judas  had  gone  with  him  and  the 
rest  in  the  expectation  of  seeing  the  Kingdom  of 
God  come  with  power.  If  it  be  worth  while  to  search 
for  the  motives  which  led  him  to  betray  Jesus,  it  is 
quite  possible  that  his  attack  upon  the  priests,  his 
prediction  of  the  end  of  their  regime,  and  his  denunci- 
ation of  the  scribes  had  caused  a  revulsion  of  feeling 
in  Judas,  who  had  expected  the  Kingdom  of  God  to 
be  a  glorification  and  not  an  abolition  of  Jewish  in- 
stitutions and  that,  being  impressed  with  the  vener- 
able sacredness  of  all  things  Jewish,  he  had  concluded 
that  Jesus  must  be  an  impostor  and,  therefore,  went 
over  to  his  enemies.  Another  possible  surmise  is  that 
Judas,  concluding  that  the  expectations  with  which 
he  had  come  to  Jerusalem  were  not  to  be  realised,  and 
seeing  the  danger  which  threatened  to  overwhelm  him 
with  the  rest,  determined  to  save  his  own  life  by 
setting  himself  right  with  the  priests. 

Whether  either  of  these  suggestions  be  correct  or  not, 
it  is  certain  that  the  motive  assigned  for  his  act  among 
the  early  Christians  is  wholly  inadequate  to  account 
for  it. 

§  LXXII:  Mark  xiv,  12-16;  Luke  xxii,  7-13;  Matt, 
xxvi,  17-19 

It  was  impossible  to  be  in  Jerusalem  at  the  time  of 
the  Passover  and  not  keep  the  Passover,  and  Jesus 
had  intended  to  keep  it.     A  friend  in  the  city  had 


3i6  The  Historic  Jesus 

apparently  agreed  to  lend  him  a  large  upper  room, 
where  he  and  his  disciples  could  be  safe  for  the  time 
from  their  enemies,  which  was  a  great  favour,  since 
the  demand  for  rooms  far  exceeded  the  supply.  The 
precautions  taken  to  keep  the  place  of  meeting  secret 
show  that,  while  Jesus  was  conscious  of  danger,  he 
was  not  expecting  an  inevitable  death.  The  account 
given  by  Mark,  and  afterwards  repeated  partly  by 
Luke  and  entirely  by  Matthew,  makes  it  seem  as  if 
he  did  keep  the  Passover  and  yet  he  did  not,  because 
the  Paschal  Supper  occurred  on  Friday  night  and  Jesus 
was  certainly  crucified  on  Friday. 

If  he  and  his  disciples  kept  the  Passover  on  Friday 
night,  then  the  crucifixion  could  not  have  taken  place 
until  Saturday,  which  is  altogether  impossible,  because 
Saturday  was  both  the  Sabbath  and  the  great  day  of 
the  Passover,  on  both  of  which  all  labour  was  forbidden. 
Therefore,  there  could  have  been  no  meeting  of  the 
Sanhedrim  on  that  day,  the  priests  would  not  have 
tolerated  an  execution,  no  servants  of  the  High  Priest 
would  have  been  allowed  to  bear  arms,  no  labourer 
would  have  been  met  coming  from  the  fields,  no 
shops  would  have  been  open  for  the  purchase  of  linen, 
all  of  which  facts  are  related  in  connection  with  the 
arrest  and  crucifixion  of  Jesus.  The  unfortunate  mis- 
placing of  the  date  by  the  Synoptic  writers  was  due 
entirely  to  later  dogmatic  theories,  according  to  which 
his  death  had  taken  the  place  of  the  sacrifice  of  the 
Paschal  lambs,  and  he  himself  had  taught  that  his 
blood,  which  was  to  be  shed,  would  mark  the  founding 
of  a  new  religion.  These  theories  originated  with  Paul, 
not  with  Jesus,  but  they  appealed  strongly  to  the 
Jewish  imagination  and  found  support  in  the  later 
custom  of  the  Jews;  for,  after  the  destruction  of  the 


The  Passion  317 

temple,  where  alone  lambs  could  be  sacrificed,  they 
were  obliged  to  content  themselves  with  bread  and  wine 
at  the  Paschal  Supper.  It  was  but  a  step  from  this 
for  the  Jewish  Christians  to  speak  of  Jesus  as  the  real 
Paschal  lamb  and  to  imagine  his  blood  to  be  the  blood 
of  a  new  covenant  and  then  to  think  that  he  must 
have  said  so. 

Since  intelligent  criticism  has  corrected  the  blunder 
of  the  evangelists,  the  question  naturally  arises  with 
regard  to  a  supper  on  Thursday  night,  which  Jesus 
had  with  his  disciples.  There  is  abundant  reason 
for  believing  that  there  was  such  a  supper  and,  as 
precautions  were  necessary,  there  is  no  reason  for 
supposing  that  it  was  held  at  any  different  place  from 
that  which  had  been  offered  them  for  Friday  night. 
Some  time  during  Thursday  some  friend  must  have 
told  Jesus,  or  sent  him  word,  that  one  of  his  disciples, 
he  did  not  know  which,  had  agreed  to  betray  him  to 
the  priests.  It  was  a  terrible  blow  to  him,  because  it 
meant  the  postponement  of  all  his  hopes  and  showed 
him  the  necessity  of  leaving  Jerusalem,  going  again  into 
hiding,  as  he  had  done  once  before  from  Herod  Antipas, 
and  then  beginning  his  work  all  over  again,  unless 
it  should  please  God  by  immediate  intervention  to 
establish  his  Kingdom  at  once.  At  any  rate,  he  would 
have  a  supper  with  his  disciples  before  they  separated 
to  find  their  way  back  to  Galilee  in  small  groups. 
For  the  execution  of  his  altered  plan,  he  sent  two  of 
his  disciples  whom  he  felt  that  he  could  trust,  after- 
wards it  was  said  to  have  been  Peter  and  John,  to  tell 
his  friend  that  he  would  need  the  room  that  night 
instead  of  the  following  night.  This  is  the  only 
possible  explanation,  unless  we  are  to  expunge  this 
whole  passage,  as  without  historical  foundation.     The 


3i8  The  Historic  Jesus 

apparently  supernatural  feature  of  the  narrative  is 
pure  invention.  Jesus  had  taken  all  possible  precau- 
tions and  told  the  disciples  whom  he  sent  about  the 
signs  agreed  upon,  but  no  one  else  knew  them  and  the 
Christians  supplied  them  later  out  of  their  imagination. 
Those  who  were  sent  undoubtedly  made  ready  a  supper 
but  it  was  not  the  Passover. 

The  fourth  Gospel  afterwards  corrected,  in  this 
respect,  the  earlier  blunder. 

§  LXXIII:  Mark  xiv,  17-21;  Luke  xxii,  21,  22;  Mail. 
xxvi,  20-2^ 

§  LXXIV.    Mark  xiv,  22-2$;  Luke  xxii,  14-20;  Matt, 
xxvi,  26-2g 

On  the  evening  of  the  same  day  Jesus  and  the  twelve 
went  to  the  house  where  the  supper  had  been  provided 
and,  as  they  reclined  about  the  board,  he  imparted 
to  them  the  distressing  fact  which  he  had  learned, 
that  one  of  their  number  had  turned  traitor.  They 
were  all  shocked  and  amazed  and  each  began  to  dis- 
claim for  himself  the  possibility  of  treason.  During 
the  excitemci  t  Judas  seems  to  have  escaped  without 
attracting  notice,  for,  had  the  rest  known  that  he  was 
the  traitor,  he  certainly  would  have  been  roughly 
handled,  if,  indeed,  he  escaped  with  his  life.  Jesus 
did  not  say:  "The  Son  of  man  goeth,  as  it  is  written 
of  him,  but  woe  unto  that  man,  by  whom  the  Son  of 
man  is  betrayed";  for  he  never  thought  of  himself  as 
the  Messiah,  nor  was  there  in  all  the  Jewish  Scriptures 
a  single  passage  which  any  one  at  that  time  imagined 
to  mean  that  the  Messiah  would  suffer  and  die;  nor, 
even  with  the  defection  of  Judas,  did  he  expect  to  be 


The  Passion  319 

killed;  nor,  if  for  a  moment  he  had  imagined  that  he 
was  only  playing  a  part,  could  he  have  cursed  another 
actor,  who,  according  to  this  statement,  was  only 
playing  another  very  important  part  without  any 
volition  of  his  own  in  the  same  divine  tragedy.  These 
unfortunate  misstatements  and  misinterpretations  by 
a  later  dogmatism  must  all  be  eliminated  from  any 
telling  of  the  story  of  Jesus  which  attempts  to  abide 
within  the  bounds  of  true  history. 

The  treason  of  Judas,  a  man  whom  he  had  known 
and  loved  and  trusted,  a  man  who  had  shown  a  like 
enthusiasm  with  the  rest  and  who  had  been  capable 
of  the  same  great  sacrifices,  had  been  such  a  terrible 
blow  to  Jesus  that  it  had  shaken  his  confidence  in  all 
the  rest  and  he  did  not  know  whom  he  could  trust. 

After  the  departure  of  Judas,  although  greatly 
depressed,  it  was  perfectly  natural  that  he  should  do 
something  to  test  and  strengthen  the  loyalty  of  the 
rest,  both  to  the  cause  which  had  brought  them  to 
Jerusalem,  and  to  himself  as  the  leader  in  whom  they 
had  believed.  According  to  Mark,  Jesus  "took  bread 
and  blessed  it  and  brake  it,  and  gave  to  them  and 
said,  Take,  eat,  this  is  my  body."  His  purpose  and 
meaning  were  perfectly  evident.  In  eating  the  bread 
they  symbolised  their  union  with  him  and  with  each 
other,  all  being  as  closely  united  as  the  bread  had  been 
before  it  was  broken.  The  act  was,  therefore,  a  renewal 
of  their  solidarity,  fidelity,  and  loyalty,  a  guarantee 
that  there  would  be  no  more  treason  in  their  ranks. 
This  was  what  the  "breaking  of  bread"  meant  to  the 
earliest  Christians,  before  dogmatic  theories  changed 
the  whole  current  of  belief  and  practice.  It  was  a 
frequent  renewal  of  the  bond  which  united  them  to  one 
another  and  to  their  Master,  as  Paul  explained  to  the 


320  The  Historic  Jesus 

Corinthians  (i,  x,  i6),  forgetting  for  the  time  his 
theories  on  the  subject,  "The  bread  which  we  break, 
is  it  not  the  communion  of  the  body  of  Christ?  seeing 
that  we,  who  are  many,  are  one  bread,  one  body,  for 
we  all  partake  of  the  one  bread." 

Paul,  however,  gives  an  account  of  the  supper 
which  varies  quite  seriously  from  the  tradition  current 
among  the  Jewish  Christians.  He  says  (i,  Cor.  xi, 
23ff)  that  Jesus  "took  bread;  and  when  he  had  given 
thanks,  he  brake  it  and  said,  This  is  my  body."  So 
far  he  agrees  with  tradition,  but  then  he  adds  the  words, 
"which  is  for  you;  this  do  in  remembrance  of  me." 
With  regard  to  the  cup,  he  represents  Jesus  as  saying: 
"This  cup  is  the  new  covenant  in  my  blood,"  a  theory 
afterwards  given  in  Luke's  Gospel  and  in  Matthew's, 
to  which  the  latter  adds,  "which  is  shed  for  many  for 
the  remission  of  sins."  Paul  also  adds  the  words, 
"this  do,  as  oft  as  ye  drink  it,  in  remembrance  of  me. 
For  as  often  as  ye  eat  this  bread  and  drink  this  cup, 
ye  proclaim  the  Lord's  death  till  he  come." 

These  words,  "as  often  as  ye  eat,"  "as  often  as  ye 
drink,"  refer  to  a  familiar  and  established  custom, 
and,  therefore,  could  not  have  been  spoken  by  Jesus, 
nor  understood  by  the  disciples. 

The  words  in  verses  19b  and  20  (Luke  xxii)  are 
lacking  in  many  early  manuscripts  and  are,  therefore, 
evidently  in  interpolation  in  Luke's  Gospel  in  the  inter- 
est of  Pauline  ideas. 

Paul  does  not  say  for  his  account  that  he  relates 
what  some  of  those  present  on  this  occasion  had  told 
him,  but  states  that  he  had  received  it  of  the  Lord, 
which  is  certainly  an  unsafe  method  for  the  writing 
of  history,  since  it  is  so  easy  to  mistake  one's  fav- 
ourite  theories   for   direct    divine    illumination.     The 


The  Passion  321 

theory  that  the  death  of  Jesus  was  a  sacrifice,  which 
made  it  possible  for  God  to  forgive  sins,  was  a  funda- 
mental dogma  of  Paul's  theology.  Jesus  had  taught 
nothing  of  the  sort,  but  it  harmonised  entirely  with 
traditional  Jewish  beliefs,  so  that  it  seemed  to  be  a 
natiiral  conclusion  of  their  theories  about  him  that 
his  death,  as  the  supreme  sacrifice,  had  taken  the  place 
of  all  previous  sacrifices  and  so  had  marked  the  begin- 
ning of  a  new  covenant  between  God  and  man,  to  take 
the  place  of  the  older  covenant  which  priestly  teaching 
affirmed  had  once  been  established  through  Moses. 

If  Jesus  had  expected  to  die,  which  he  certainly  did 
not,  he  never  would  have  said  that  his  blood  would  be 
"shed  for  many,"  or  "shed  for  many  for  the  remission 
of  sins,"  since  his  belief  concerning  the  remission  of  sins 
was  that  God  forgave  those  who  came  to  themselves, 
and  those  who  loved  much,  without  having  to  be  paid 
for  forgiving,  and  simply  because  as  a  father  he  was 
glad  that  the  son  who  had  been  dead  was  alive  again. 
It  is  necessary,  therefore,  to  strike  out  from  the  various 
accounts  all  references  to  a  supposed  atonement  or  to 
an  imaginary  new  covenant.  The  account  in  Luke's 
Gospel  is  of  much  assistance.  He  falls  into  the  blunder, 
which  was  common  in  his  day  and  before  it,  of  thinking 
that  the  supper  was  a  Paschal  Supper;  but,  strangely 
enough,  he  makes  no  mention  of  the  bread,  but  repre- 
sents Jesus  as  saying,  concerning  the  supper  as  a  whole, 
what  he  did  say  concerning  the  wine,  that  he  would  not 
any  more  eat  thereof  until  it  should  be  "fulfilled" 
in  the  Kingdom  of  God.  This  is,  of  course,  unhistorical, 
because  the  supper  was  not  the  Passover.  As  regards 
the  wine,  however,  he  agrees  with  Mark,  and  Matthew 
repeated  the  same  account,  so  that  here  we  imdoubtedly 
have  a  true  tradition.     According  to  him,  Jesus  said: 


322  The  Historic  Jesus 

"Take  this  and  divide  it  among  yourselves;  for  I  say 
unto  you,  I  will  not  drink  of  the  fruit  of  the  vine 
until  the  Kingdom  of  God  shall  come."  Mark  says: 
"until  that  day  that  I  drink  it  new  in  the  Kingdom  of 
God,"  and  Matthew,  "until  that  day  that  I  drink  it 
new  with  you  in  my  Father's  Kingdom." 

Nothing  but  strong  dogmatic  preconceptions  could 
make  it  possible  to  mistake  these  words.  Jesus,  from 
the  beginning  of  his  work,  had  proclaimed  that  the 
Kingdom  of  God  was  coming,  by  which  he  meant, 
and  all  who  heard  him  understood,  that  God  was 
coming  to  establish  his  personal  reign  in  Jerusalem. 
A  company  of  enthusiastic  and  devoted  friends  had 
come  to  Jerusalem  with  him  to  prepare  the  Jewish 
people  for  its  coming.  One  of  them  had  already  turned 
traitor  and  it  was  necessary  to  strengthen  the  faith 
and  coiu"age  of  the  rest. 

They  had  already  renewed  their  loyalty  to  Jesus 
by  partaking  of  the  same  bread,  as  evidence  that 
they  constituted  one  body  with  him.  He  would  also 
quicken  their  faith  in  the  cause  which  had  brought 
them  to  Jerusalem.  Passing  the  cup  of  wine,  he 
assured  them  that  before  they  came  together  for  another 
supper  the  Kingdom  of  God  would  have  come.  He 
could  have  done  nothing  so  well  calculated  to  revive 
them,  after  the  shock  caused  by  the  defection  of  Judas, 
or  to  strengthen  others  who  might  be  wavering,  and 
it  is  impossible  to  imagine  that,  having  taught  the 
material  reality  of  the  Kingdom  of  God,  he  suddenly 
changed  all  his  ideas  on  the  subject  and  now  meant 
something  entirely  different,  that,  after  they  were  all 
dead  and  had  been  resurrected,  they  would  meet  at 
a  spiritual  banquet  in  a  heavenly  kingdom.  This 
would  have  afforded  the  disciples  no  consolation,  but, 


The  Passion  323 

on  the  contrary,  woiild  have  increased  their  perplexity 
and  distraction  from  the  thought  that  the  very  thing 
for  which  they  had  come  to  Jerusalem  had  proved  a 
delusion  and  that  Jesus  himself  had  given  up  hope. 
On  the  contrary,  his  own  faith  and  hope  were  stronger 
than  ever.  He  did  not  think  for  a  moment  that  he 
had  been  mistaken,  nor  that  his  enemies  would  win  a 
victory  over  him  by  accomplishing  his  death,  nor  that, 
after  going  away  for  a  while  from  the  earth,  he  would 
come  back  again.  Consequently,  having  no  thought 
of  dying,  he  could  not  have  said  that  the  bread  and 
wine  were  symbols  of  his  death,  nor  that  his  blood 
would  be  shed  for  the  remission  of  sins,  nor  could  he 
have  told  the  disciples  that  they  were  to  make  a  similar 
use  of  bread  and  wine,  nor  that  they  were  to  do  it  in 
remembrance  of  him,  nor  that,  in  doing  it,  they  would 
show  forth  his  death  until  his  return.  All  these  were 
afterthoughts  among  the  Christians  and  had  no  place 
at  the  last  supper,  which  becomes  the  more  evident 
from  the  original  account  in  Luke's  Gospel,  verses 
14-18;  for,  seeing  the  omission  of  all  the  later  theories, 
some  one  at  a  later  date  inserted  verses  19  and  20  to 
make  the  account  agree  with  the  Pauline  theology, 
(i  Cor.  xi,  23-25.)  That  this  is  an  insertion  makes  it 
seem  probable  that  verse  24  in  Mark's  accoimt  and 
verse  28  in  Matthew's  are  also  insertions  in  the  interest 
of  dogmatism.  With  these  sUght  omissions  from  each 
of  the  three  narratives,  the  whole  account  becomes 
historical,  except  for  the  one  mistake  that  the  supper 
took  place  on  Friday  night  instead  of  Thursday,  and 
establishes  the  fact  that,  after  the  defection  of  Judas, 
Jesus  strengthened  the  loyalty  of  the  rest  to  himself 
by  dividing  am.ong  them  the  bread,  and  stirred  anew 
their  enthusiasm  for  the  Kingdom  of  God  through  the 


324  The  Historic  Jesus 

assuring  words  which  accompanied  the  passing  of 
the  wine.  It  is  an  interesting  and  important  question 
where  Paul  got  his  ideas  on  the  subject,  which  he 
imagined  were  due  to  direct  divine  illumination. 

Some  of  them,  such  as  the  necessity  of  the  shedding 
of  blood  for  the  remission  of  sins,  the  proclaiming  of 
the  Lord's  death  by  a  ritual  observance,  as  a  means 
of  reminding  God  of  the  supposed  sacrificial  death  of 
Jasus,  and  the  interpretation  of  his  death  as  the  foimding 
of  a  new  covenant,  were  due  to  his  Jewish  inheritance 
and  rabbinical  training. 

But  in  connection  with  these  was  another  set  of  ideas, 
for  the  introduction  of  which  into  Christianity  Paul 
is  chiefly  responsible.  The  interpretation  of  the  Last 
Supper  as  a  Communion  Service  to  be  frequently 
repeated  and  in  which  the  Christians  were  to  receive 
the  actual  body  and  blood  of  Jesus,  was  due  to  him. 
Instead  of  acquiring  these  ideas  by  divine  revelation, 
they  had  been  familiar  to  him  from  childhood  and  he 
had  grown  up  in  the  atmosphere  of  them.  For  all 
over  Asia  Minor  and  throughout  the  Greek-speaking 
world,  under  many  reHgions  and  in  all  the  Mysteries, 
these  beHefs  held  a  prominent  place,  the  faithful 
being  taught  that  the  bread  and  wine  which  they 
received  were  the  body  and  blood  of  a  god  and  became 
to  them  the  means  for  absorbing  the  divine  life  and 
acquiring  immortality. 

Paul's  native  city,  Tarsus,  was  the  headquarters 
of  the  religion  and  Mysteries  of  Mithras  and,  although 
he  quite  unconsciously  combined  in  his  mind  many 
pagan  beliefs  with  his  inherited  Jewish  ones,  yet  was 
the  source  so  evident  that  a  writer  soon  after  his  day 
and  borrowing  his  name  (Col.  i,  26)  could  refer  to 
**  the  mystery  which  hath  been  hid  from  ages  and  from 


The  Passion  325 

generations,    but   is     now     made     manifest     to     his 
saints." 

We  may,  therefore,  confidently  expunge  from  the  ac- 
counts of  the  Last  Supper  all  that  has  been  added  to 
them  from  the  ideas  of  Paul. 

Luke  xxii,  21-30 

That  this  statement  of  the  facts  and  their  inter- 
pretation is  true  becomes  the  more  evident  from  the 
account  which  Luke  adds  to  his  narrative.  While  it 
is  altogether  improbable  that  the  controversy  about 
the  best  positions  in  the  coming  Kingdom  either  took 
place  or  was  repeated  at  this  time,  the  fact  that  Luke 
could  insert  it  here  shows  that  about  the  end  of  the 
century,  two  generations  after  the  event,  it  was  generally 
recognised  among  the  Christians  that,  when  Jesus  at 
the  supper  assured  the  disciples  that  the  Kingdom 
would  come  before  they  should  have  supper  together 
again,  he  meant  and  was  tmderstood  to  mean  something 
so  real  and  tangible  and  so  completely  within  this 
world  that  they  could  fall  to  disputing  about  positions, 
and  that  he  could  assure  them  that  they  would  aU 
eat  and  drink  at  his  table  and  sit  upon  twelve  thrones 
ruling  the  twelve  tribes  of  Israel.  The  suggestion 
of  twelve  thrones  for  the  friends  of  Jesus  is  a  later 
embellishment  by  the  Christians  and  could  not  have 
originated  with  Jesus,  since  he  had  long  before  told  them 
that  the  positions  of  honour  were  not  his  to  bestow. 

Conversation  concerning  the  Kingdom  must  have 
followed  the  renewed  anticipations  of  its  coming, 
although  the  actual  form  of  the  conversation  as  Luke 
gives  it  is  due  to  him  and  not  to  any  true  tradition, 
since  Jesus  certainly  did  not  expect  Judas  as  a  guest 


326  The  Historic  Jesus 

at  his  table,  nor  say  that  a  throne  was  reserved  for  him. 
While  the  words,  as  given,  cannot  be  historical,  the 
belief  of  the  Christians  towards  the  close  of  the  first 
century  certainly  is  historical,  as  is  also  the  impression 
which  the  disciples  received  from  both  the  words  and 
the  act  of  Jesus;  for,  recovering  from  the  shock  which 
the  act  of  Judas  had  caused,  faith,  hope,  devotion,  and 
enthusiasm  all  came  back  and  they  broke  out  into  song. 

§  LXXV:  Mark  xiv,  26-31;  I^uke  xxii,  31-34;  Matt,  xxvi, 

30-35 

Men  do  not  sing  when  they  are  depressed,  but  only 
when  they  are  happy,  and  that  the  disciples  could  sing 
at  this  time  shows  that  they  had  entirely  recovered 
from  the  shock  to  their  beliefs  and  hopes  which  the 
treason  of  Judas  had  caused.  But  it  shows  much 
more  than  this.  If  Jesus  had  told  them  that  he  was 
about  to  die,  but  that,  after  he  was  gone,  they  might 
call  him  to  mind  and  at  the  same  time  remind  God 
of  his  death  as  a  sacrifice  which  made  it  possible  for 
him  to  forgive  sins,  by  frequently  dividing  among 
themselves  bread  and  wine,  there  would  have  been 
no  singing,  but,  on  the  contrary,  the  most  heart-rending 
distress  and  a  determination  to  defend  his  life  with 
their  own. 

After  a  severe  nervous  strain  there  comes  a  reaction. 
Jesus  had  had  a  very  severe  strain  both  from  the  grief 
which  the  treason  of  Judas  had  caused  him  and  from 
the  supreme  effort  which  he  had  made  to  revive  the 
faith  and  loyalty  of  the  rest.  After  they  had  left  the 
room  and  were  on  their  way  to  a  quiet  retreat,  he  seems 
to  have  experienced  a  painful  reaction,  so  much  so 
that  he  apparently  doubted  whether  he  could  rely  upon 


The  Passion  327 

any  of  the  disciples  at  a  critical  moment.  His  depres- 
sion was  certainly  very  real,  and  left  so  much  of  an 
impression  upon  the  disciples  that  the  fact  must  be 
a  perfectly  true  tradition.  Just  what  he  said,  however, 
must  have  been  forgotten,  if,  indeed,  he  said  anything 
at  all,  for  at  such  times  it  is  impossible  to  talk.  Later 
there  grew  up  a  tradition  which  purported  to  give 
his  words. 

The  disciples,  undoubtedly,  fled  after  the  arrest 
of  Jesus.  Later,  perhaps  as  an  excuse,  it  was  claimed 
not  only  that  Jesus  had  predicted  their  flight,  but  that 
an  ancient  prophet  had  foreseen  it  centuries  before. 
In  "searching  the  Scriptures"  the  Christians  found  a 
passage  in  the  book  of  Zechariah,  which,  because  it 
spoke  of  smiting  the  shepherd  and  scattering  the  sheep, 
they  imagined  had  reference  to  Jesus  and  his  disciples. 
The  passage  is  from  the  second  Zechariah,  about  280 
B.  c,  and  represents  Jahveh  as  calling  upon  the  sword 
to  smite  a  bad  king,  one  of  the  Greek  rulers  of  Pales- 
tine, in  order  that  his  supporters  might  be  scattered. 
That  such  a  passage  could  be  imagined  to  apply  to  a 
Messiah,  or  in  any  possible  way  to  Jesus,  or  that  he 
could  be  conceived  of  as  quoting  it  with  reference  to 
himself,  simply  illustrates  the  dull  and  reckless  way 
in  which  the  early  Christians  used  the  Jewish  Scriptures. 

A  like  criticism  applies  to  the  story  of  Peter's  denial. 
It  is  quite  probable  that  Peter,  in  his  fright,  did  deny 
any  acquaintance  with  Jesus ;  but  that  Jesus  could  have 
predicted  a  threefold  denial  would  imply  an  accurate 
foreknowledge  of  all  that  was  to  happen,  and  this 
would  be  impossible  imless  the  whole  conduct  of  life 
were  prearranged  and  every  one  acted  under  the  control 
of  some  external  power.  This  would  do  away  with  all 
responsibility  and  make  ethics  a  mere  delusion. 


328  The  Historic  Jesus 

We  may  well  believe  that  Jesus  warned  Peter  of  the 
danger  arising  from  the  impetuosity  of  his  nature, 
but  he  certainly  could  not  have  predicted  that  he 
would  deny  him  three  times  that  very  night  before  the 
"cock-crowing,"  which  was  the  popular  designation  for 
the  third  watch  and  did  not  imply  any  actual  crowing. 

Luke  xxii,  35-38 

Luke,  fortunately,  preserved  an  account  from  the 
earliest  tradition,  which  had  either  escaped  the  notice 
of  Mark,  or  had  been  suppressed  by  him,  because  it  did 
not  agree  with  his  theories.  According  to  it,  before 
leaving  the  room  where  the  supper  had  been  held, 
Jesus  reminded  the  disciples  that  they  needed  to  make 
such  preparation  as  they  could  for  their  journey  back 
to  Galilee  and  a  very  different  preparation  from  what 
had  sufficed  for  their  missionary  tour.  Then  they  had 
been  sent  out  without  purses,  or  wallets,  or  shoes,  and 
yet  they  lacked  nothing,  because  those  to  whom  they 
preached  had  supplied  all  that  they  needed.  Now  they 
would  have  to  find  their  way  home  through  hostile  vil- 
lages, where  not  only  would  no  one  give  them  food,  but 
they  would  ^e  attacked  and  persecuted.  They  would 
need  to  take  what  money  and  provisions  they  had 
and  they  would  need  swords  for  defence.  They  would 
need  them  so  seriously  that  it  would  be  well  to  sell 
their  cloaks  at  the  first  opportunity  and  buy  them. 
They  were  to  set  out  the  following  morning  and  Jesus 
designated  the  place  where  he  would  meet  them  again 
in  Galilee.  The  tradition  of  this  fact  is  preserved  in 
the  Gospels  of  Mark  and  Matthew,  but  had  already 
been  transformed  into  the  popular  belief  that  this 
meeting  was  to  take  place  "after"  Jesus  was  risen, 


The  Passion  329 

which  is  manifestly  impossible,  because  all  the  accounts 
of  the  attitude  and  conduct  of  the  disciples  show  that 
they  were  entirely  unprepared  for  his  death  and,  there- 
fore, that  he  had  said  nothing  to  them  about  either 
his  death  or  resurrection. 

Luke  undertook  to  soften  down  the  tradition  which 
he  had  discovered,  by  making  Jesus  proclaim  the  later 
theory  that  his  death  was  part  of  a  prearranged  plan, 
but,  having  discharged  his  dogmatic  duty,  returned 
to  the  tradition.  The  disciples  found  that  they  had 
two  swords  among  them  and  Jesus  said,  "  It  is  enough." 
Enough  for  what?  Apart  from  all  dogmatic  precon- 
ceptions, one  would  naturally  say — enough  for  present 
need,  enough  for  protection  during  that  night.  When 
they  separated  they  would  need  more  swords,  but  in 
the  daytime  they  could  sell  their  cloaks  and  buy  them. 
Two  would  suffice  for  that  night,  for  what  Jesus  antic- 
ipated and  dreaded  was  the  sudden  attack  of  a  hired 
assassin.  He  had  done  nothing  for  which  the  Sanhed- 
rim could  put  him  to  death,  if  they  had  had  the  power, 
V,  hich  they  did  not  have.  He  had  never  come  into 
contact  with  the  Roman  authorities  and  had  done 
nothing  for  which  they  would  put  him  to  death.  In 
fact,  he  had  escaped  the  trap  concerning  the  tribute 
money,  by  means  of  which  the  Pharisees  had  hoped  to 
have  a  cause  of  accusation  against  him  before  Pilate. 

It  did  not  seem  to  him,  therefore,  that  he  could  be 
put  to  death  by  any  legal  process;  but,  knowing  that 
his  enemies  were  determined  to  kill  him,  if  possible, 
he  expected  that  they  might  hire  a  man  to  spring  upon 
him  suddenly  in  the  night  and  kill  him,  but  with  eleven 
strong  men  about  him  and  two  swords  among  them  he 
felt  that  he  was  reasonably  safe  for  the  night. 

It  is  perfectly  evident  that,  when  Jesus  stated  the 


330  The  Historic  Jesus 

necessity  for  swords,  they  were  intended  for  the  pro- 
tection of  his  own  life  and  those  of  the  disciples,  and 
that  therefore  both  the  early  Christian  theory  that  he 
expected  to  die  and  the  dogmatic  designation  of  him 
as  a  "willing  victim"  are  simply  the  delusions  of 
misguided  minds. 

§  LXXVI:  Mark  xiv,  32-42;  Luke  xxii,  39-46;  Matt. 
xxvi,  36-46 

Jesus  and  the  disciples  went  out  to  the  Mount  of 
Olives  and  came  to  an  olive  grove  which  was  walled 
about  and  provided  with  an  oil  press,  from  which  it 
was  familiarly  known  as  Gethsemane,  "The  oil  press." 
They  seemed  to  be  reasonably  safe  there,  and  would  have 
been,  had  not  Judas  known  of  the  place,  either  from 
having  been  there  with  them  on  previous  nights  or 
from  having  watched  to  see  where  they  went.  By  way 
of  precaution,  Jesus  divided  the  disciples,  stationing 
the  two  bodies  some  distance  apart  and  bidding  them 
keep  on  the  watch,  while  he  went  farther  into  the  grove 
to  be  alone.  They  were  naturally  exhausted  from  the 
excitement  of  the  evening  and  the  preceding  days,  and 
yet  it  is  incc,  nprehensible  that  they  could  have  been  so 
dull  as  not  to  realise  the  danger  and  not  to  make  an 
effort  to  keep  awake.  Inasmuch  as  they  went  to  sleep, 
it  is  evident  that  they  could  not  have  reported  what 
Jesus  did  or  said  while  they  were  asleep.  They 
remembered  only  that  when  he  left  them  he  was 
suffering  from  a  crushing  sorrow.  All  else,  which  was 
afterwards  related  in  current  tradition,  as  to  what 
Jesus  said  in  prayer,  represented  popular  impressions 
as  to  what  men  thought  that  he  must  have  said  and, 
therefore,    reflects    not    the    mind   of   Jesus,  but    the 


The  Passion  33 1 

Christian  imagination  of  a  generation  later.  Why  was 
Jesus  sorrowful?  It  seemed  to  the  Christians  after- 
wards, and  has  so  been  understood  by  the  majority 
ever  since,  that,  having  a  full  realisation  of  the  physical 
suffering  which  awaited  him  on  the  morrow,  he  shrank 
from  it,  and  that  he  begged  God  to  withold  his  heavy 
hand  and  let  him  escape  it.  This  was  and  always  has 
been  utterly  unworthy  of  Jesus,  but  to  the  multitude, 
which  lives  only  a  physical  life,  physical  pain  is  the  only 
suffering  which  it  can  appreciate.  If  Jesus  had  antic- 
ipated physical  suffering  for  himself,  it  would  have 
coimted  for  nothing,  for  it  would  have  been  completely 
overwhelmed  by  the  awful  mental  agony  which  he 
endured.  To  have  one's  ideals  shattered,  to  see  one's 
noblest  plans  miscarry,  to  have  one's  fairest  hopes 
blighted,  to  have  one's  heart  set  on  saving  a  nation 
and  to  be  condemned,  persecuted,  and  hunted  like  a 
criminal,  to  have  to  begin  all  over  again  when  appar- 
ently on  the  very  verge  of  success,  these  are  the  crushing 
griefs  which  make  great  souls  sorrowful  unto  death, 
and  it  was  these  things  and  not  the  prospect  of  physical 
pain  which  weighed  down  the  soul  of  Jesus  on  that 
dreadful  night.  For  relief  and  sustenance,  for  new 
hope  and  courage  he  poured  out  his  soul  to  his  Father. 
There  was  no  one  to  understand  his  suffering,  nor  to 
give  him  a  single  word  of  human  sympathy  and,  when 
men  told  of  it  afterwards,  physical  suffering  was 
the  only  thing  which  impressed  them.  Jesus  always 
prayed  to  God  as  "Father"  and  he  prayed  in  Aramaic, 
but  he  did  not  add  the  translation  of  "Father"  into 
Greek.  This  was  a  custom  which  Paul  adopted  for 
the  benefit  of  his  Greek  readers,  who  would  not  have 
known  what  the  Aramaic  word  meant.  That  Mark 
followed  Paul's   custom  in  giving   this  prayer  shows 


332  The  Historic  Jesus 

that  it  was  a  purely  artificial  construction.  Luke 
afterwards  saw  the  incongruity  of  adding  the  Greek 
translation  and  left  it  out.  Other  elements  show  the 
artificialness  of  the  account.  Doubtless  Jesus  had  said 
to  the  disciples  many  times  previously,  "Watch 
and  pray,  lest  ye  enter  into  temptation."  It  would 
have  been  altogether  out  of  place  on  this  occasion, 
because  it  was  not  then  a  question  of  temptation,  but 
they  had  been  put  on  guard  to  protect  their  Master 
against  a  sudden  attack,  while  the  expression,  "The  spir- 
it is  willing,  but  the  flesh  is  weak"  is  peculiarly  Pauline. 
There  is  one  feature  of  this  reported  prayer  which 
cannot  be  overlooked.  That  the  Christians  could 
have  developed  a  tradition  that,  on  this  Thursday  night 
Jesus  prayed  that  the  "cup"  might  pass  from  him 
shows  that  it  was  not  originally  held  that  he  had  come 
to  Jerusalem  in  anticipation  of  and  for  the  purpose  of 
being  killed,  but  that  the  turn  which  events  had  taken 
and  the  danger  which  threatened  him  were  entirely 
unlooked  for;  and,  therefore,  that  all  accounts  which 
represent  him  as  predicting  his  death  are  simply 
elements  of  a  later  theory  put  back  into  the  Gospel 
narrative  and  must  all  be  eliminated  in  the  interest  of 
true  history.  Luke  introduced  the  legend  of  an  angel 
to  make  it  appear  that  while  God  required  the  death 
of  Jesus  he  would  give  him  strength  to  endure  the  pain; 
but  the  grief  of  Jesus  would  have  been  increased  a 
thousand-fold  could  he  have  foreseen  a  Christian  world 
really  believing  for  hundreds  of  years  that  God  did 
require  his  death,  so  that,  having  received  satisfaction, 
he  might  be  able  to  forgive  sins.  This  was  the  Jewish 
conception  of  God,  against  which  Jesus  had  striven 
with  all  his  might  and  for  which  he  had  tried  to  sub- 
stitute the  divine  Father,  whose  nature  impelled  him 


The  Passion  333 

to  forgive  all  the  children  who  returned  to  him  in 
loyalty  and  love.  The  Christian  worid  has  contented 
itself  with  the  Jewish  God  who  demanded  a  price. 

The  artificialness  of  this  narrative  is  further  shown 
in  the  last  verse,  for  Jesus  could  not  have  said  in  the 
same  breath,  ''Sleep  on  now  and  take  your  rest.  Rise, 
let  us  be  going."  While  the  disciples  had  slept,  Jesus, 
in  prayer  to  God,  had  acquired  strength  and  calmness 
for  whatever  new  trials  might  come. 

^LXXVII:  Mark  xiv,  43-52;  Luke  xxii,  47-53;  Matt, 
xxvi,  47-56 

In  the  stillness  of  the  night  Jesus  heard  a  mob 
coming  and  knew  what  it  meant.  Rousing  the  sleepy 
disciples,  he  told  them  that  the  traitor  was  at  hand. 
It  would  appear  that  Judas  had  watched  to  see  where 
Jesus  and  the  disciples  went,  and  having  seen  them 
quietly  settled  for  the  night,  had  hurried  off  to  tell 
the  priests  where  he  might  be  found.  The  priests, 
hastily  collecting  some  of  their  servants  and  providing 
them  with  swords,  had  put  them  in  charge  of  an  officer 
of  the  High  Priest  and  sent  them  with  Judas.  On  their 
way  they  were  joined  by  some  of  the  ordinary  night 
marauders  armed  only  with  sticks. 

When  the  two  bodies  faced  each  other  there  must 
have  been  a  brief  moment  of  indecision,  as  it  were  to 
gauge  each  other's  strength,  after  which  Judas,  stepping 
up  to  Jesus,  gave  him  a  kiss,  as  the  sign  agreed  upon 
to  show  the  one  whom  they  were  to  take.  Just  what 
happened  after  that  we  cannot  tell.  The  disciples  were 
too  much  dazed  and  frightened  to  give  any  intelligible 
account  of  it  afterwards.  We  do  not  know  how  large 
the  mob  was.  but  the  narratives  show  that  the  disciples 


334  The  Historic  Jesus 

made  no  fair  attempt  at  defence  or  rescue.  Tradition 
says  that  one  of  them  cut  off  one  of  the  leader's  ears, 
which  a  fooUsh  legend  adds  was  immediately  restored 
to  its  place  and  healed.  But  mobs  do  not  stop  to  have 
miracles  wrought,  nor  for  the  making  of  harangues 
such  as  the  Gospels  narrate.  They  do  their  work 
quickly  and  roughly.  What  Jesus  is  reported  to  have 
said  is  therefore  largely,  if  not  wholly,  the  work  of 
later  apologetics.  The  Christians  foimd  it  necessary 
in  preaching  their  beHef  that  he  was  the  Messiah,  to 
explain  how  the  Messiah  could  have  suffered  disgrace 
and  death  and,  in  doing  so,  had  recourse  to  misinter- 
pretations of  Scriptures,  which  they  imagined  to  refer 
to  the  Messiah.  In  these  accounts  of  the  arrest, 
Jesus  is  represented  as  explaining  to  a  mob  of  rough  men, 
mostly  slaves  and  vagabonds,  that  their  act  in  attacking 
and  arresting  him  was  in  fiilfilment  of  ancient  pro- 
phecies, which  is  absurd  and  puerile.  He  certainly 
did  not  take  them  to  task  for  not  having  arrested  him 
in  the  daytime,  in  the  temple,  for  then  there  would  have 
been  too  many  to  defend  him  and  a  riot  would  have 
ensued,  nor  were  the  High  Priest's  servants  doing 
anything  except  to  execute  their  orders. 

There  were  no  "chief  priests,"  nor  "captains  of 
the  temple,'*  nor  "elders"  present,  as  Luke  afterwards 
imagined.  The  chief  priests  and  elders  were  waiting 
in  the  house  of  the  High  Priest  for  the  bringing  in  of 
Jesus,  and  the  captains  of  the  temple  were  not  expected 
to  do  duty  outside  the  temple  precincts.  Jesus  cer- 
tainly did  not  upbraid  the  disciples  for  using  one  or 
both  of  the  swords  which  they  had  with  them,  since 
only  a  few  hours  before  he  had  bidden  them  to  procure 
swords  and  for  the  very  purpose  of  protecting  him. 
At  that  time  he  had  said  that  two  swords  were  enough, 


The  Passion  335 

and  they  certainly  wotild  have  sufficed  in  good  hands 
with  the  help  of  nine  other  strong  men  against  the 
attack  of  one  or  two  hired  assassins.  Jesus  had  not 
anticipated  an  arrest,  because  he  had  no  thought  of 
the  possibiHty  of  a  legal  process.  He,  therefore, 
had  not  expected  to  defend  himself  against  a  mob,  but 
he  quite  probably  told  the  disciples,  after  a  brief 
conflict,  that  further  resistance  was  useless.  A  few 
hours  before  the  disciples  had  apparently  aU  declared 
their  wiUingness  to  die  with  him,  if  necessary;  but, 
when  the  crisis  came,  "they  all  forsook  him  and  fled." 
At  least,  such  is  the  early  tradition  and  it  is  apparently 
true,  for  there  is  no  evidence  of  the  presence  of  any  of 
them  in  Jerusalem  after  this  night,  with  the  possible 
exception  of  Peter,  although  the  supposed  prediction 
of  their  flight  by  the  second  Zechariah  may  have  affected 
the  tradition.  Luke  suppressed  the  story  of  the  flight 
altogether,  because  it  conflicted  with  his  theory  that 
the  disciples  all  remained  in  Jerusalem,  where  they 
became  immediate  witnesses  of  the  resurrection. 

§  LXXVIII:  Mark  xiv,52,  54;  Luke  xxii,  54,55;  Matt. 
xxvi,  57,  58 

When  the  hastily  gathered  band  of  slaves  had  set 
out  upon  their  errand  to  arrest  Jesus,  the  High  Priest 
notified  such  of  his  party  and  of  the  scribes  as  could 
be  conveniently  reached  in  the  night.  Those  who 
went  to  the  palace  in  response  to  the  notice  did  not 
constitute  a  legal  session  of  the  Sanhedrim  for  a  criminal 
trial,  since  the  law  (Mischna,  Tract.  Sanhedrim) 
expressly  provided  that  in  criminal  cases  two  trials 
must  be  held,  both  in  the  daytime  and  a  day  apart, 
that,  if  the  accused  were  adjudged  guilty  at  the  first 


336  The  Historic  Jesus 

trial,  the  twenty-three  judges  must  remain  together 
for  twenty-four  hours,  discussing  the  case  in  pairs, 
eating  little,  drinking  no  wine,  spending  the  whole 
night  in  the  interchange  of  opinions  and  reopening  the 
court  on  the  following  morning.  Moreover,  court 
could  not  be  held  on  the  day  before  the  Sabbath,  nor 
on  the  day  before  a  feast.  As  none  of  these  condi- 
tions were  complied  with,  it  becomes  evident  from 
the  account  itself  that  there  was  no  trial  before  the 
Sanhedrim;  for,  although  a  second  session  after  day- 
break is  mentioned,  it  was  not  in  accordance  with  the 
law,  since  it  was  held  on  the  same  day  as  the  sup- 
posed first  trial.  Jesus  could  not  have  been  brought 
to  the  High  Priest's  house  before  midnight  and,  as  the 
Jewish  day  began  at  sunset,  it  was  already  Friday,  on 
which,  it  being  the  day  before  the  Sabbath  and  before 
the  Passover,  no  trial  could  be  held. 

Paul,  who  believed  that  the  Jewish  law  had  been 
abrogated  by  the  death  of  Jesus,  would  have  had  an 
overwhelming  argument  against  it,  if  he  could  have 
shown  that  he  had  been  condemned  in  accordance 
with  its  provisions.  Had  he  heard  that  such  was  the 
case,  he  certainly  would  not  have  written  to  the  Rom.ans 
that  the  law  was  "holy  and  just  and  good,"  which  makes 
it  apparent  that  the  story  of  a  trial  was  not  an  early 
tradition,  but  a  later  growth,  and  that  it  is  therefore 
not  historical,  but  purely  imaginary,  and  with  an 
apologetic  motive,  for  the  desire  certainly  grew  up, 
as  the  new.  religion  spread  into  foreign  lands,  to  excuse 
the  Roman  Government  as  far  as  possible  for  its  share 
in  the  death  of  Jesus  and  to  lay  all  the  blame  upon  the 
Jews. 

There  is  a  still  further  reason  for  regarding  a  Jewish 
trial  as  a  work  of  the  imagination,  since  the  Sanhedrim 


I 


The  Passion  337 

would  have  accomplished  nothing  by  a  trial  and 
condemnation  of  Jesus,  for,  in  case  of  a  condemnation 
to  death,  they  could  not  execute  their  verdict.  The 
Romans  had  taken  away  their  right  of  putting  any  one 
to  death,  nor  was  Pilate  disposed  to  ratify  such  verdicts 
as  they  might  render  on  matters  connected  with  their 
law.  A  trial,  therefore,  on  their  part  would  have  been 
absolutely  without  result.  Moreover,  had  there  been 
a  trial,  there  was  no  friend  of  Jesus  present  to  relate 
afterwards  what  had  occurred.  The  disciples  had  fled 
and,  had  they  followed,  they  would  not  have  been 
admitted  to  a  room  in  the  palace  where  priests  and 
scribes  were  assembled.  Peter,  who  is  said  to  have 
followed  Jesus  at  a  distance,  was  obliged  to  remain 
with  the  servants  and,  therefore,  had  no  means  of 
knowing  what  was  said  or  done.  Fron  these  consider- 
ations, that  a  criminal  trial  required  two  days,  that  it 
could  not  have  been  held  on  Friday,  and  that  it  could 
have  accomplished  nothing  if  held,  we  must  conclude 
that  there  was  no  trial.  On  the  contrary,  we  may  be 
very  sure  that  the  priests  had  everything  arranged  be- 
fore Jesus  was  brought  in,  that  only  a  few  were  notified 
of  his  arrest,  and  that  they  hurried  with  their  prisoner 
to  Pilate  as  soon  as  he  opened  court,  preferring  before 
him  the  only  charge  on  which  he  could  be  persuaded 
to  condemn  Jesus  to  death,  that  he  was  a  pretender  to 
the  Jewish  throne  and  that  he  already  had  a  large 
following  and  might  at  any  time  become  troublesome 
to  the  Roman  Government. 

§  §  LXXIX,  LXXX:  Mark  xiv,  55-65;   Luke    xxii, 
63-71;  Matt,  xxvi,  59-66 

Although,  for  the  reasons  given,  there  could  have 


33^  The  Historic  Jesus 

been  no  trial  of  Jesus  by  the  Sanhedrim,  it  seemed  to 
the  Christians  of  a  later  generation  that  something 
like  a  trial  must  have  taken  place,  and  the  lack  of 
information  gave  free  play  to  phantasy  in  relating 
the  grounds  on  which  he  was  condemned.  It  is  quite 
possible  that  some  of  them,  believing,  as  they  all  did, 
that  he  was  the  Messiah  and  that  nearly  everything 
in  their  Scriptures  referred  to  him,  found  a  suggestion 
as  to  the  course  of  the  trial  in  the  27th  Psalm,  which 
refers  to  the  people  of  Israel  as  a  whole,  "False  wit- 
nesses did  rise  up  against  me." 

However  that  may  be,  a  story  of  false  witnesses, 
whose  testimony  did  not  agree,  became  current  among 
them  about  a  generation  after  the  event.  One  of  the 
reports,  as  given  later  in  its  simplest  form  by  Matthew, 
related  that  he  had  said,  "I  am  able  to  destroy  the 
temple  of  God  and  to  build  it  in  three  days."  It  is 
quite  impossible  that  he  said  it,  since  such  a  statement 
would  have  been  entirely  out  of  accord  with  his  nature 
and  his  custom. 

Mark,  moreover,  while  saying  that  the  witnesses 
did  not  agree,  was  disposed  to  believe  the  validity  of 
this  charge,  but  explained  it  as  a  prophecy  on  the  part 
of  Jesus  that  a  new  religion,  a  temple  not  made  with 
hands,  and  therefore  built  from  human  hearts,  would 
take  the  place  of  the  Jewish  religion  represented  by 
the  temple  built  by  hands.  This  idea  he  had  ac- 
quired from  Paul,  with  whom  Christians  had  become 
a  "temple  of  God."  The  author  of  the  fourth  Gospel 
afterwards,  believing  that  Jesus  had  said  these  words, 
thought  that  he  had  reference  to  his  own  body  which 
would  be  restored  "after  three  days." 

An  actual  historical  foundation  for  such  a  charge 
may   have   existed   in   the   popular   interpretation   of 


The  Passion  339 

what  Jesus  had  really  said  to  the  priests,  that  the 
vineyard  would  be  taken  away  from  them  and  let  out 
to  other  husbandmen.  It  was  believed  to  have  consti- 
tuted part  of  the  "reviling"  while  he  was  on  the  cross 
and  afterwards  was  the  charge  brought  against  Stephen, 
while  a  recently  discovered  fragment  of  the  Gospel 
of  Peter  says:  "We  hid  ourselves,  because  they 
hunted  for  us  as  criminals  and  as  people  who  were 
tr^ang  to  bum  the  temple." 

According  to  Mark  and  Matthew  nothing  was  gained 
by  means  of  false  witnesses,  while  Luke  omitted  the 
whole  account  of  a  sitting  of  the  Sanhedrim  during 
the  night. 

While  there  was  undoubtedly  a  tradition  among  the 
Christians  concerning  false  witnesses  who  did  not 
agree,  they  seem  to  have  settled  down  upon  the  belief 
that  Jesus  was  really  condemned  to  death  by  the 
Sanhedrim  for  blasphemy,  but  herein  they  showed 
themselves  quite  as  tmfamiliar  with  the  provisions 
of  the  Jewish  law  as  in  supposing  that  a  legal  session 
could  have  been  held  at  all  under  the  circumstances. 

Blasphemy,  according  to  Lev.  xxiv,  16,  was  punish- 
able by  death,  and  the  crime  of  blasphemy  was  fully 
defined  in  Mischna,  Sanhedrim,  ch.  vii.  According  to 
its  provisions,  a  blasphemer  is  not  legally  guilty  unless 
he  has  spoken  the  name  of  Jahveh.  At  the  trial  it 
was  strictly  provided  that  witnesses  must  use  some 
other  name  in  referring  to  God,  in  order  to  avoid 
repeating  the  blasphemy.  Even  after  condemnation, 
all  whose  presence  was  not  absolutely  necessary  being 
excluded  from  the  court,  the  oldest  of  the  witnesses 
was  asked  to  say  aloud  what  he  had  heard.  At  the 
moment  when  he  spoke  the  holy  name  the  judges 
were  to  spring  to  their  feet  and  tear  their  clothes. 


340  The  Historic  Jesus 

Other  witnesses  answered  only,  "I  agree  with 
him." 

According  to  this  law,  Jesus  was  guilty  of  no  blas- 
phemy and  could  not  have  been  condemned  for 
blasphemy  by  the  Sanhedrim.  Mark  says  that  the 
High  Priest  asked  him,  "Art  thou  the  Messiah,  the 
Son  of  the  Blessed,"  and  Matthew,  "I  adjure  you  by 
the  living  God  that  thou  tell  us  whether  thou  be  the 
Messiah,  the  Son  of  God."  According  to  Mark, 
Jesus  replied:  "I  am,  and  you  will  see  the  Son  of  Man 
sitting  on  the  right  hand  of  power  and  coming  in  the 
clouds  of  Heaven."  Matthew  gives  virtually  the  same 
answer  and  Luke  a  similar  statement,  but  not  in 
answer  to  a  question.  It  must  be  recognised,  however, 
that  the  priests  and  scribes  were  determined  to  have 
Jesus  put  to  death,  if  possible,  and  that  they  did  not 
care  in  the  least  whether  he  were  the  Messiah  or  not. 
Nor  could  any  claim  on  his  part  to  be  the  Messiah  have 
constituted  a  ground  for  a  condemnation  to  death. 

Any  man  might  claim  to  be  the  Messiah,  and,  if 
he  could  not  prove  his  claim,  might  be  punished  as  an 
impostor,  but  not  be  put  to  death  for  blasphemy. 
If  Jesus  had  said  at  this  supposed  trial  that  he  was  the 
Messiah  and  that  he  would  sit  at  the  right  hand  of 
God  and  come  in  the  clouds  of  heaven,  these  were 
inevitable  prerogatives  of  the  Messiah  and  contained 
no  blasphemy.  Even  if  the  High  Priest  had  asked  him 
if  he  were  the  Son  of  God  and  Jesus  had  said  that  he 
was,  even. then  there  could  have  been  no  blasphemy, 
for,  as  used  by  the  Jews,  the  expression  Son  of  God 
was  simply  an  equivalent  term  for  Messiah,  with  none 
of  the  metaphysical  and  theological  meaning  which 
pagan  Christians  afterwards  put  into  it. 

Since,    therefore,    a    condemnation    for   blasphemy 


The  Passion  341 

cannot  be  historical,  it  becomes  evident  that  a  motive 
of  Christian  apologetics  underlies  the  whole  account. 
The  Christians  based  their  entire  propaganda  on  the 
belief  that  Jesus  was  the  Messiah,  to  which,  by  the 
time  the  Gospels  began  to  be  written,  they  added  a 
belief  that  he  was  the  Son  of  God,  which,  among 
foreign  converts,  was  taken  literally. 

If  they  could  show  that  Jesus  had  accepted  both 
designations  for  himself  at  the  crisis  of  his  life,  they 
seemed  to  have  the  strongest  evidence  for  the  truth 
of  these  beliefs.  Hence,  we  have  the  supposed  trial 
and  supposed  blasphemy,  but  both  of  them  tmhistorical ; 
since  a  trial  could  not  have  been  legal,  a  verdict  would 
have  been  useless  and  blasphemy  was  not  proved. 

According  to  Mark,  after  the  High  Priest  had  de- 
clared the  blasphemy  and  had  rent  his  clothes  and 
they  had  all  adjudged  Jesus  to  be  guilty  of  death, 
"some  began  to  spit  upon  him  and  to  cover  his  face, 
and  to  buffet  him  and  to  say  unto  him.  Prophesy! 
and  the  servants  did  strike  him  with  the  palms  of  their 
hands."  While  the  odium  theologicum  is  the  source 
of  the  most  extreme  maUce  and  cruelty  known  to  the 
human  heart,  one  could  hardly  imagine  the  foremost 
men  of  a  nation,  its  chief  priests,  doctors  of  law,  and 
pillars  of   orthodoxy   descending  to  coarse   brutaHty. 

Luke  gives  a  more  intelligible  account.  According 
to  him,  there  was  no  session  of  the  Sanhedrim  during 
the  night,  but  Jesus  was  kept  in  charge  by  those  who 
had  arrested  him,  either  in  the  court  or  in  the  guard 
room  of  the  palace,  where  it  is  quite  possible  that  the 
coarse  ncv:ure  of  slaves  might  have  vented  itself  in 
brutal  horse-play  upon  a  defenceless  prisoner.  While 
there  may  have  been,  thus,  an  historical  foundation 
for  this  account,  the  Christians,  no  doubt,  found  much 


342  The  Historic  Jesus 

consolation  and  strong  confirmation  of  their  views 
through  their  ingenious  discovery  that  everything 
happened  just  as  they  supposed  it  had  been  foretold; 
for  they  discovered  in  the  prophecy  of  Micah  (v,  i) 
a  passage  referring  to  an  unjust  ruler  of  the  eighth 
century  before  Christ:  "they  will  smite  the  judge  of 
Israel  with  a  rod  upon  the  cheek,"  also  two  passages 
in  the  writings  of  the  second  Isaiah,  the  prophet  of 
the  exile,  concerning  the  faithful  Jews,  known  collect- 
ively as  the  suffering  servant  of  Jahveh:  "I  gave  my 
back  to  the  smiters,  and  my  cheeks  to  them  that 
plucked  off  the  hair:  I  hid  not  my  face  from  shame  and 
spitting"  (Is.  1,  6)  and,  "He  is  despised  and  rejected 
of  men;  a  man  of  sorrows  and  acquainted  with  grief; 
and  we  hid  as  it  were  our  faces  from  him;  he  was  de- 
spised and  we  esteemed  him  not."  (Is.  liii,  3.)  While, 
therefore,  rough  treatment  of  Jesus  by  the  slaves  during 
the  night  is  quite  possible,  the  Christians  undoubtedly 
discovered  the  details  of  the  bnitality  in  their  misin- 
terpretation of  the  Scriptures,  among  other  blunders 
changing  the  hiding  of  the  faces,  so  as  not  to  see  the 
sufferings  of  the  servant  of  Jahveh,  into  a  blindfolding 
of  Jesus. 

Luke  relates  that  there  was  a  single  session  of  the 
Sanhedrim,  as  soon  as  it  was  day,  at  which  Jesus  was 
asked  to  tell  them  if  he  were  the  Messiah,  to  which 
he  is  said  to  have  answered:  "If  I  tell  you  you  will 
not  believe :  and  if  I  also  ask  you,  ye  will  not  answer  me, 
nor  let  me  go."  This  is  almost  a  repetition  of  the  scene 
between  Zedekiah  and  Jeremiah,  after  the  latter  had 
been  rescued  from  the  dungeon:  (Jer.  xxxviii);  "and 
the  king  said  unto  Jeremiah,  I  will  ask  thee  a  thing ; 
hide  nothing  from  me.  Then  Jeremiah  said  unto 
Zedekiah,  If  I  declare  it  unto  thee,  wilt  thou  not  surely 


The  Passion  343 

put  me  to  death?  and  if  I  give  thee  counsel,  wilt 
thou  not  hearken  unto  me?"  Although  Luke  repre- 
sents Jesus  as  declining  to  answer  the  question,  he 
immediately  makes  him  answer  it,  almost  in  the 
identical  words  of  the  account  of  Mark,  adding  also 
his  claim  to  be  the  Son  of  God  in  the  sense  of  the  later 
theology,  which  is  a  manifest  anachronism;  for,  while 
the  priests  would  have  been  greatly  shocked  at  any 
such  interpretation  of  the  term  "Son  of  God"  as  it 
acquired  later  among  the  Christians,  it  had  no  such 
meaning  for  them  and,  therefore,  they  could  not  have 
declared,  "What  need  we  any  further  witnesses?" 
meaning  that  Jesus  was  self -condemned.  Luke 
apparently  had  learned  enough  of  Jewish  procedure 
to  know  that  there  could  have  been  no  legal  session 
of  the  Sanhedrim  and  no  condemnation  of  Jesus  for 
blasphemy  if  there  had  been. 

Setting  aside,  therefore,  all  accounts  of  a  trial  as 
due  to  the  phantasy  and  apologetic  motives  of  later 
Christians,  we  find  as  the  actual  facts  of  history  that 
Jesus  was  brought  to  the  palace  of  the  High  Priest 
during  the  night,  presumably  not  long  after  midnight, 
and  was  guarded  by  the  slaves  who  arrested  him,  and 
that  they  possibly  beguiled  the  time  by  the  brutal 
treatment  of  their  prisoner, 

§  LXXXI:  Mark  xiv,  66-/2;  Luke  xxii,  56-62;  Matt,  xxvi, 

69-75 

The  denial  of  Peter  must  be  an  historical  fact,  since 
it  never  would  have  been  invented  by  the  Christians 
to  his  detriment,  and  as  the  story  could  have  been  told 
by  none  but  Peter  himself,  it  becomes  good  evidence 
as  to  what  did  and  what  did  not  happen  during  at  least 


344  The  Historic  Jesus 

part  of  the  night.  He  undoubtedly  followed  Jesus  at 
a  distance  and,  seeing  that  there  was  quite  a  crowd 
of  slaves  and  guards  in  the  court-yard  of  the  High 
Priest's  palace,  ventured  to  enter,  hoping  to  escape 
notice  while  watching  the  course  of  events.  It  is 
related  that  a  maid  belonging  to  the  palace  recognised 
him  as  one  of  the  disciples  of  Jesus,  but  that  he  denied 
the  fact ;  that  later  the  same,  or  another  maid,  repeated 
the  statement,  but  that  he  denied  it  again  and  that,  fin- 
ally, several  declared  that  it  must  be  true,  since  his  speech 
showed  him  to  be  a  Galilean,  whereupon  he  began  to 
curse  and  to  swear,  declaring  that  he  had  no  acquaint- 
ance with  Jesus.  All  accounts  agree  that,  at  this 
third  denial,  a  cock  crowed;  Mark  related  that  he  also 
crowed  after  the  first  denial.  Luke  alone  adds  that 
"the  Lord  turned  and  looked  upon  Peter,"  who  then 
"remembered  the  word  of  the  Lord,  how  he  had  said 
unto  him.  Before  the  cock  crow,  thou  wilt  deny  me 
thrice." 

The  important  fact  in  these  accounts  is  the  statement 
by  Luke  that  "  the  Lord  turned  and  looked  upon  Peter." 
Luke  must  have  had  some  good  ground  for  making 
this  statement  and,  if  it  may  be  taken  as  historical, 
it  makes  it  apparent  that  there  was  no  trial  going  on 
before  the  Sanhedrim,  but  that  Jesus  was  in  a  guard 
room  opening  out  of  the  coiu"t,  where  he  could  turn 
and  look  upon  Peter.  This  is  important  testimony 
to  the  fact  that  there  was  no  trial.  It  is  idle  in  this 
connection  to  try  to  save  the  account  of  the  trial  and 
to  rest  it  upon  Peter's  testimony,  by  claiming  that  the 
"maid"  related  to  the  by-standers,  in  his  hearing, 
all  that  was  going  on  in  the  court  above;  for,  not  only 
is  no  such  statement  made  in  the  Gospel  narrative, 
but  one  could  not  imagine  a  maid  going  in  and  out 


The  Passion  345 

at  pleasure  during  a  session  of  the  Sanhedrim  and 
running  down  to  the  court  to  relate  to  the  rough 
crowd  what  was  passing  before  that  dignified 
body. 

Peter  must  have  related  afterwards  that  the  time 
when,  realising  what  he  had  done,  he  went  out  and  wept 
bitterly,  was  about  the  "cock-crowing."  Years  after- 
wards the  foreign  Christians,  knowing  little  or  nothing 
about  Jewish  law  or  custom,  took  the  statement 
literally  and  imagined  that  there  was  a  real  cock  that 
crowed.  That  this  cannot  have  been  the  case  is 
evident  for  two  reasons.  In  the  first  place  it  was 
contrary  to  law  to  keep  hens  in  Jerusalem  and,  in  the 
second  place,  the  night  was  divided  into  four  watches, 
beginning  at  six  p.m.,  and  known  respectively  as  late, 
midnight,  cock-crowing,  early.  As  a  designation  of 
time,  the  end  of  the  watch  was  meant  and,  therefore, 
the  cock-crowing  would  stand  for  three  o'clock  in 
the  morning.  The  supposed  cock-crowing  appealed  to 
the  imagination  of  the  Christians,  as  its  supposed 
prediction  by  Jesus  appealed  to  their  love  of  the  mar- 
vellous. They  had  fallen  so  completely  into  the  habit 
of  using  misinterpretations  of  prophecy  as  materials 
for  constructing  his  life  that,  finding  no  prophecy 
about  the  cock-crowing,  they  were  obliged  to  invent  one 
and  assign  it  to  Jesus,  not  realising  in  the  least,  on 
account  of  the  extreme  fatalism  of  the  Semitic  mind, 
that,  if  Peter's  denial  could  have  been  foretold,  it 
must  have  been  foreordained  and,  if  foreordained,  Peter 
was  not  to  blame. 

Peter's  denial,  due  to  the  fright  and  cowardice  of 
a  weak  character,  remains  a  fact,  but  not  the  prediction 
of  it,  nor  the  fantastic  accompaniment  of  an  actual 
cock-crowing. 


34^  The  Historic  Jesus 

§  LXXXII:  Mark  ocv,  1-5;  Luke  xxiii,  7-5;  Matt,  xxvii, 
I,  2,  11-14 

From  the  time  when  Peter  disappeared  from  the 
court  of  the  High-Priest's  palace  until  Jesus  hung  upon 
the  cross  there  was  no  eye-witness,  on  the  part  of  the 
Christians,  to  relate  the  course  of  events.  They  were, 
therefore,  compelled  to  imagine  them,  and  afterwards 
they  related  what  they  thought  must  have  happened, 
as  if  it  actually  did  happen. 

They  knew  that  some  of  the  Jewish  authorities 
took  Jesus  to  Pilate,  with  a  request  for  his  condemna- 
tion, and  that  Pilate  condemned  him.  More  than  this 
they  did  not  know  and,  in  considering  the  details  of 
the  narrative  as  they  supplied  them,  we  are  not  dealing 
with  history,  but  only  with  Christian  impressions. 
The  lack  of  positive  information  was  the  less  seriously 
felt  because  they  were  so  sure  that  everything  had 
been  predicted  in  their  Scriptures  centuries  before. 
The  fifty-third  chapter  of  the  book  of  Isaiah  furnished, 
according  to  their  views,  abundant  information,  and 
when  they  read  in  the  seventh  verse:  "He  was 
oppressed  and  he  was  afflicted;  yet  he  opened  not  his 
mouth;  he  *3  brought  as  a  lamb  to  the  slaughter  and 
as  a  sheep  before  her  shearers  is  dumb,  so  he  openeth 
not  his  mouth,"  they  were  able  to  record  with  the 
confidence  of  eye-witnesses  that  Jesus  made  no  reply 
to  most  of  the  questions  asked  him  either  by  the  priests 
or  by  Pilate. 

Mark  says  that  "in  the  morning,"  that  is,  soon  after 
six  o'clock,  for  here  he  uses  the  term  for  the  fourth 
watch,  the  chief  priests,  having  come  to  an  agreement, 
bound  Jesus  and  carried  him  away  and  delivered 
him  to  Pilate.     The  English  translation   "held  a  con- 


The  Passion  347 

sultation, "  is  bad.  The  translators  ignored  the  par- 
ticiple, perhaps  to  make  the  translation  agree  with 
the  statement  by  Matthew. 

It  was  a  very  serious  undertaking  for  Jews  to  sur- 
render one  of  their  own  nation  to  the  Roman  Govern- 
ment for  punishment  and  could  only  be  done  as  quietly 
and  hurriedly  as  possible  in  order  to  avoid  a  tumult. 

The  priests  were  brought  to  their  act  by  the  instinct 
of  self-preservation.  Ever  since  Jesus  had  interfered 
with  the  ritual  of  the  temple  and  had  told  them 
publicly  that  their  day  was  over,  while  he  was  visibly 
winning  an  ever-increasing  sympathy  from  the  crowd, 
they  had  realised  that  nothing  but  his  death  would 
save  their  prestige  and  protect  their  revenues.  As 
they  could  not  put  him  to  death  legally,  their  only 
recourse  was  to  a  hired  murderer  or  a  condemnation 
by  the  Roman  Government.  An  assassination  would 
have  been  easily  arranged,  but,  had  it  been  discovered 
that  they  were  the  instigators,  the  crime  would  have 
recoiled  upon  them  and  brought  them  into  ill  repute 
with  a  large  proportion  of  the  Jewish  people.  The 
only  thing  left  for  them,  therefore,  was  to  persuade 
Pilate  to  put  Jesus  to  death,  and  in  such  a  way  that  it 
might  seem  to  be  an  act  of  the  Roman  Government, 
with  which  neither  priests  nor  Pharisees  had  had 
anything  to  do.  While  they  had  intended  to  wait 
until  after  the  Passover,  when  the  crowd  would  be 
gone,  we  may  be  sure  that,  when  the  opportunity  came 
to  them  unexpectedly  to  arrest  Jesus,  they  acted 
quietly  and  did  not  summon  the  whole  Sanhedrim, 
nor  many  of  its  members,  but  a  few  of  those  who  had 
been  planning  to  accomplish  his  death,  that  the  final 
arrangements  might  be  quickly  decided  upon  and 
their  prisoner  hurried  to  Pilate  with  as  little  demon- 


348  The  Historic  Jesus 

stration  and  as  early  in  the  morning  as  possible.  Mark, 
therefore,  entirely  misunderstood  the  situation  when 
he  wrote  that  the  whole  Sanhedrim  accompanied  Jesus 
through  the  city  to  the  court  of  Pilate.  Of  all  things, 
those  in  the  plot  wanted  to  avoid  notice,  and  the 
little  company  of  priests  which  repaired  to  Pilate's 
court  certainly  did  not  accompany  Jesus,  but,  sending 
him  under  guard,  went  quietly,  two  by  two,  by  other 
routes.  Of  all  men  among  the  Jewish  people,  the 
priests  and  their  party,  the  Sadducees,  were  the  only 
ones  who  could  ask  a  favour  of  a  Roman  procurator, 
for  they  alone  were  on  friendly  terms  with  the  Romans. 
A  foreign  government  did  not  interfere  with  the  power 
of  the  priests  over  the  masses,  nor  curtail  their  revenues, 
but  rather  protected  them,  while  they,  in  turn,  aided 
the  Romans  by  restraining  the  popular  impulses  to- 
wards revolt.  The  priests  could  thus  the  more  readily 
persuade  Pilate  to  do  them  the  favour  of  putting  Jesus 
to  death,  on  the  ground  that  he  was  a  pretender  to 
the  Jewish  throne  and  might  at  any  time  stir  up  a 
revolution.  That  this  is  what  they  actually  did  is 
apparent  from  the  inscription  on  the  cross:  "The 
King  of  the  Jews."  What  happened  when  Jesus 
was  before  Pilate  we  do  not  know.  He  certainly  did 
not  claim  to  be  a  king,  since  he  had  never  made  any 
such  claim  for  himself  and  knew  perfectly  well  that  he 
was  not  descended  from  David.  This  statement  is 
due  to  the  later  Christian  belief.  If  Pilate  asked  any 
questions,  we  may  be  sure  that  he  answered  grandly 
and  wisely,  his  supposed  silence  being  due  entirely  to 
the  misapplied  prophecy.  Luke  suppressed  the  story 
of  the  silence,  but  imagined  a  crowd  of  people  present 
in  addition  to  the  priests  and  that,  after  Jesus  had 
acknowledged   himself  to   be   a   king,  Pilate   declared 


The  Passion  349 

to  all  assembled  that  he  found  no  fault  in  him,  both 
of  which  statements  are  incredible. 

Luke  xxiii,  6-12 

Luke  only  introduces  at  this  point  a  story  which  is  so 
absolutely  improbable  that  it  may  be  set  aside  at  once 
as  having  no  foundation  in  fact.  .  According  to  him, 
Pilate  suspended  the  trial,  in  order  to  send  his  prisoner 
to  Herod  Antipas,  who  had  come  up  to  Jerusalem  for 
the  Passover. 

Later  some  one  added  the  tenth  to  the  twelfth  verses, 
which  state  that  the  chief  priests  and  scribes  followed 
to  lay  their  accusations  before  Herod,  who,  after  ask- 
ing a  few  questions  to  which  Jesus  made  no  reply, 
fraternised  with  his  soldiers  in  abusive  sport  and, 
arraying  Jesus  in  "gorgeous  apparel,"  sent  him  back 
to  Pilate. 

In  considering  these  statements,  we  cannot  remind 
ourselves  too  strongly  that  it  was  necessary  for  the 
priests  to  execute  their  crime  as  speedily  and  as  quietly 
as  possible,  and  that  Pilate  understood  as  well  as  they 
the  need  of  avoiding  any  act  which  could  excite  the 
vast  crowd  of  pilgrims  brought  together  for  the  Passover, 
a  majority  of  whom  were  at  the  white  heat  of  religious 
fanaticism.  Pilate,  therefore,  did  not  attract  attention 
to  Jesus  by  sending  him  to  Herod  Antipas,  nor  can  one 
imagine  a  Roman  procurator,  who  represented  the 
majesty  of  the  emperor,  thinking  so  lightly  of  his 
dignity  as  to  recognise  the  equal  jurisdiction  of  the 
tetrarch  of  a  subject  province. 

If  it  be  worth  while  to  enquire  how  Liike  came  to 
make  these  statements,  it  seems  probable  that  since 
the  name  of  Herod  was  a  permanent  source  of  terror 


350  The  Historic  Jesus 

among  the  more  ignorant  Jewish  population,  a  tradition 
had  grown  up  among  them  that  Herod  the  Great  had 
been  partly  guilty  of  the  death  of  Jesus.  Luke, 
apparently,  from  his  better  knowledge  of  history, 
undertook  to  set  the  matter  straight  by  showing  that 
it  was  not  Herod  the  Great,  but  Herod  Antipas,  who, 
through  the  courtesy  of  Pilate,  became  connected  with 
the  death  of  Jesus.  However  this  may  be,  the  account 
as  it  stands  is  imhistorical. 

§  LXXXIII:  Mark  xv,  6-15;  Luke  xxiii,  13-2$;  Matt, 
xocvii,  15-26 

Up  to  this  point  in  the  narrative  the  plot  of  the 
priests  has  been  carried  on  quietly  and  without  at- 
tracting any  notice.  Mark  had  already  stated  that 
two  days  before,  when  they  began  to  make  plans  for 
the  death  of  Jesus,  they  had  said:  "Not  during  the 
feast,  lest  haply  there  shall  be  a  timiult  of  the  people." 
Now  circumstances  had  thrown  Jesus  into  their  hands 
on  the  very  day  when  the  feast  was  to  begin.  It  was 
necessary  to  take  every  precaution  to  avoid  attracting 
the  attention  of  the  public  to  their  crime  and  this  they 
certainly  had  done;  but  suddenly  the  narrative  intro- 
duces a  great  crowd  upon  the  scene  and  Pilate  is 
represented  by  Luke  as  addressing  himself  to  "the 
chief  priests  and  the  rulers  and  the  people,"  saying 
to  them:  "Ye  have  brought  this  man  unto  me  as  one 
that  perverteth  the  people:  and,  behold,  I,  having 
examined  him  before  you,  have  found  no  fault  in  this 
man  touching  those  things  whereof  ye  accuse  him  .... 
I  will,  therefore,  chastise  him  and  release  him.  (For  of 
necessity  he  must  release  one  unto  them  at  the  feast.) 

And  they  cried  out  all  at  once,  saying.  Away  with  this 


The  Passion  351 

man  and  release  unto  us  Barabbas."  It  was  an  old 
Jewish  custom  to  release  a  prisoner  at  the  Passover 
and  it  is  quite  possible  that  the  Roman  Government 
retained  the  custom  and  released  a  political  prisoner 
at  that  time.  Most  prisoners  were  political  prisoners, 
since  Jewish  politics  were  inseparable  from  deeds  of 
violence.  It  is  also  possible  that  a  party  may  have 
come  to  ask  the  release  of  Barabbas  while  Pilate  was 
busy  with  the  case  of  Jesus,  yet  other  features  of  the 
narrative  make  it  seem  altogether  improbable  that  the 
two  events  coincided  in  time. 

Who  was  Barabbas?  We  do  not  know.  The  name 
means,  apparently,  "Son  of  a  Teacher,"  and  would 
imply  that  he  belonged  to  the  higher  classes  and  was 
a  popular  favourite.  The  earliest  account  by  Mark 
states  that  during  a  riot  he  had  killed  a  man,  perhaps 
in  self-defence  or  by  accident.  Luke  makes  it  appear 
that  he  was  a  leader  of  sedition  and  was  properly  imder 
indictment  for  murder;  Matthew,  that  he  was  a 
prisoner  of  some  prominence;  while  by  the  time  the 
fourth  Gospel  was  written  he  had  become  an  ordinary 
"thief"  and  "robber." 

It  was  a  part  of  the  early  Christian  apologetics, 
as  the  new  religion  spread  throughout  the  empire, 
to  make  it  appear  that  the  Roman  Government  had 
found  Jesus  not  guilty  and  that  his  death  was  due 
entirely  to  the  Jews,  and  not  to  the  priests  only,  but 
to  the  whole  Jewish  nation. 

In  working  out  this  theory,  Mark  makes  it  appear 
that  in  his  effort  to  set  Jesus  free,  Pilate  appealed  from 
the  priests  to  the  people  and  that,  in  pursuance  of  the 
custom,  real  or  supposed,  of  liberating  a  prisoner  at 
the  Passover,  he  proposed  to  set  Jesus  free.  Mark 
then  assumes  that  the  priests  forgot  their  dignity  and 


352  The  Historic  Jesus 

risked  their  reputation  by  going  among  the  crowd  and 
instigating  them  to  demand  the  release  of  Barabbas, 
upon  which  Pilate  asked  the  crowd  what  he  should  do 
with  Jesus,  and  finally  acceded  to  their  sentence  of 
crucifixion.  No  one,  however,  with  a  fair  amount  of 
judgment  and  historical  consciousness,  could  imagine 
a  Roman  proctirator  consulting  a  crowd  as  to  the 
administration  of  justice  and  deciding  cases  in  response 
to  popular  clamour.  Roman  justice  often  miscarried, 
but  it  was  not  administered  after  this  fashion,  while 
the  utter  impossibility  of  the  whole  account  is  made 
the  more  evident  by  the  embellishment  in  Matthew's 
Gospel,  where  it  is  related  that,  in  yielding  to  the  clamour 
of  the  mob,  Pilate  "took  water  and  washed  his  hands 
before  the  multitude,  saying,  I  am  innocent  of  the  blood 
of  this  just  person:  see  ye  to  it." 

This  was  a  Jewish  custom  prescribed  by  law  (Deut. 
xxi,  6,  7)  but  no  one,  unless  afflicted  with  the  most 
extreme  naivete,  could  imagine  a  Roman  doing  any- 
thing of  the  sort,  nor  is  it  possible  to  think  that  Jewish 
priests  could  so  entirely  forget  their  own  interests  as 
to  incite  a  crowd  of  Jews  to  demand  the  death  of  one 
of  their  nation  at  the  hands  of  the  Romans.  On  the 
contrary,  it  was  the  policy  of  the  priests  to  keep  out 
of  sight  and  not  to  appear  to  have  acted  at  all. 

The  story  of  Barabbas  and  of  the  demand  for  his 
release  may  be  perfectly  true,  but  not  in  connection 
with  the  condemnation  of  Jesus.  It  was  the  release 
of  the  one  and  the  condemnation  of  the  other,  pre- 
senting as  they  did  a  striking  and  tragic  contrast, 
which  brought  the  two  events  together  in  the  Christian 
imagination,  while  the  effort  of  the  Christians  in  later 
days  to  show  that  the  Roman  Government  was  not  to 
blame,  but  would  have  gladly  liberated  Jesus,  accounts 


The  Passion  353 

for  the  reported  attempts  of  Pilate  to  persuade  the 
supposed  mob  to  let  him  execute  justice  in  his  own  way. 
Relieving  the  accounts  of  their  unhistorical  embel- 
lishments, we  find  that  the  priests  sent  Jesus  to  Pilate 
as  soon  after  six  o'clock  in  the  morning  as  possible, 
that  a  few  of  them  who  had  influence  with  him,  because 
they  could  do  much  to  restrain  the  people  from  creating 
a  tumult  and  could  easily  discredit  him  with  the  Roman 
Government,  went  to  him  with  the  request  that  he  put 
Jesus  to  death,  explaining  to  him  that  he  could  justify 
the  act  to  himself  on  the  ground  that  Jesus,  laying 
claim  to  the  throne  of  David  and  having  already  a 
large  following,  might  at  any  time  become  dangerous, 
or  at  least  troublesome,  to  the  Roman  Government. 
This  is  probable  history.  There  was  no  crowd  present, 
Jesus  was  not  sent  to  Herod,  the  demand  for  the  release 
of  Barabbas  did  not  occur  at  the  same  time,  and 
Pilate  did  not  consult  a  crowd,  which  was  not  present, 
nor  wash  his  hands,  in  token  of  innocence,  as  if  he  had 
been  a  Jew. 

§  §  LXXXIV—LXXXVI:  Mark  xv,  16-32; Luke xxiii, 
26-43;  Matt,  xxvii,  27-44 

It  is  related  that  after  the  condemnation  of  Jesus, 
the  soldiers  took  him  into  a  hall,  called  by  Mark  the 
Praetorixmi,  and  in  Matthew's  Gospel  the  common 
hall,  evidently  a  large  room  which  served  as  a  guard 
room. 

When  it  is  said  that  they  called  together  "the  whole 
band,"  it  is  not  necessary  to  suppose  that  a  whole 
garrison  of  Jerusalem  was  meant,  but  only  such  soldiers 
as  happened  to  be  on  guard  in  the  palace  of  Herod. 
The  garrison  consisted  of  only  six  hundred  men,  one 


354  The  Historic  Jesus 

cohort,  and  it  is  certainly  not  probable  that  all  were 
summoned  from  the  fort  of  Antonia,  nor  that  there 
was  a  room  in  the  building  where  Pilate  held  court 
large  enough  for  so  many.  It  is  hardly  probable  that 
even  a  maniple  of  two  hundred  men  was  present. 
To  a  detail  of  such  as  were  present  Jesus  was  handed 
over  for  crucifixion.  It  is  said  that  while  the  soldiers 
were  preparing  to  carry  out  the  sentence,  they  indulged 
in  coarse  brutality  with  their  prisoner.  The  account 
is  open  to  suspicion,  since  this  is  the  third  time  that  the 
same  story  has  been  told  and  because  the  Christians 
believed  that  the  abuse  had  been  prophesied.  This 
time,  however,  there  seems  to  be  more  probability 
of  its  truth,  for  the  reasons  that  Jesus  had  been  con- 
demned as  a  pretender  to  the  Jewish  throne  and  that 
the  soldiers  who  had  him  in  charge  were  probably 
Samaritans. 

The  Romans  had  no  Roman  legion  in  Palestine, 
but  only  such  provincial  soldiers  as  they  had  taken  over 
at  the  deposition  and  banishment  of  Archelaus  in 
6  A.D.  As  the  Jews  would  not  bear  arms,  except  in 
a  war  for  Jewish  independence,  the  rulers  of  Palestine 
had  been  obliged  to  draw  their  soldiers  from  the  non- 
Jewish  popiilation.  Those  under  the  Romans  were 
known  as  the  Caesareans  and  Sebastians,  the  latter 
being  Samaritans,  and  so  it  happened  that  Jesus  fell 
into  the  hands  not  only  of  a  rough  soldiery,  but  of 
men  full  of  a  bitter  hatred  of  Jews.  One  may  well 
imagine  that  they  vented  their  race  hatred  upon  him 
and  that  they  possibly  did  carry  out  the  brutal  scene 
of  the  mockery  of  a  king.  It  is  not  necessary  to  press 
or  criticise  the  purple  robe  of  Mark,  or  the  scarlet  robe 
of  Matthew,  to  imagine  that  it  was  really  a  royal 
garment,  or  to  wonder  where  they  had  plundered  a 


The  Passion  355 

royal  wardrobe.  It  was  evidently  the  first  thing  that 
came  to  hand,  with  some  colour  in  it,  and  a  makeshift, 
as  the  hastily  made  crown  was  a  makeshift  for  a  real 
crown.  The  spitting  and  the  smiting  are  unnecessary 
features  of  the  account  based  on  supposed  prophecy. 
The  object  of  the  soldiers,  if  the  account  be  true, 
was  mockery  rather  than  personal  abuse  and  even  the 
crown  of  thorns,  upon  which  much  stress  has  been  laid, 
seems  to  have  been  made  with  the  idea  of  providing 
something  that  would  pass  for  a  crown  and  not  for 
the  purpose  of  causing  suffering.  While,  however, 
the  account,  in  its  main  features,  is  altogether  possible, 
it  needs  to  be  borne  in  mind  that  there  were  no  friendly 
eye-witnesses  to  relate  to  the  disciples  what  happened. 

Pictures  of  Jesus  bearing  the  cross,  with  which  art 
has  made  us  familiar,  are  altogether  misleading.  Artists 
are  seldom  historians  and  never  archaeologists.  Had 
any  of  them  ever  been  interested  to  inquire  as  to  the 
method  of  crucifixion  practised  by  the  Romans,  and 
whether  Oriental  custom  differed  from  the  Roman, 
they  would  have  learned  that  there  were  so  many 
modes  of  crucifixion  that  no  one  could  say  definitely 
just  how  it  was  carried  out  in  a  given  case;  but  it 
certainly  did  not  occur  as  they  imagined;  for  there 
were  no  crosses  constructed  of  two  pieces  of  heavy 
timber  crossed  and  fastened  together,  either  kept  on 
hand  ready  for  use,  or  hastily  constructed,  to  be  carried 
by  the  victims  to  the  place  of  execution. 

A  common  mode  of  crucifixion  was  by  means  of  a 
single  heavy  post  to  be  erected  in  the  ground  and  which 
might  possibly  be  carried  or  dragged  by  the  victim. 
This  being  set  in  the  ground,  the  victim  was  fastened 
to  it  by  a  nail  through  his  hands,  extended  above  his 
head,  the  feet  being  either  nailed  or  bound.     In  Rome, 


356  The  Historic  Jesus 

however,  the  posts  were  permanent  at  the  place  of 
execution  and  a  heavy  cross-bar  was  laid  upon  the  neck 
of  the  victim  and  his  arms  bound  to  it.  In  this  way 
he  was  led  through  the  city.  Arrived  at  the  place  of 
execution,  his  hands  were  nailed  to  the  cross-bar,  on 
which  he  was  then  partly  pulled  and  partly  lifted  up, 
until  the  cross-bar  could  be  hung  upon  a  nail  or  set 
into  a  socket  in  the  post.  The  feet  were  then  either 
tied  or  nailed  to  the  post  below.  Never  was  a  victim 
nailed  to  a  finished  cross,  which  was  then  lifted  up 
until  its  base  could  be  dropped  into  a  hole  in  the  ground. 
As  executions  were  common  enough  in  Jerusalem,  it 
may  be  taken  for  granted  that  posts  for  crucifixion  were 
permanent  and  that  Golgotha,  the  place  of  a  skull, 
derived  its  name,  not,  as  has  been  supposed,  because 
it  was  a  hill  resembling  a  skull,  but  because  it  was  the 
regular  place  for  crucifixions.  If  this  be  so,  it  was  nei- 
ther a  finished  cross  nor  the  heavy  post  which  Jesus 
was  expected  to  carry,  but  the  cross-bar,  called  by  the 
Romans  patibulum,  which  was  also  heavy,  too  heavy 
for  one  worn  as  he  was  by  the  nervous  strain  and  the 
recent  scourging.  On  this  account  the  centurion 
compelled  Simon,  a  man  from  Cyrene,  the  capital  of 
Libya,  whom  they  met  on  his  way  to  the  city,  to  carry 
the  heavy  piece  of  timber.  The  account  is  made  more 
realistic  by  the  mention  of  the  fact  that  this  Simon  was 
the  father  of  Alexander  and  Rufus,  who  were  evidently 
men  living  at  the  time  and  were  well  known  to  the 
Christians  in  Rome,  for  whom  this  Gospel  was  written. 
The  mention  of  the  younger  men  was  omitted  in  the 
later  Gospels,  for  the  reason  that  they  were  no  longer 
living  when  these  were  written. 

Luke  alone  introduces  the  statement  that  a  multi- 
tude,  including  many  women,  followed  to  the  place 


The  Passion  357 

of  execution,  which  is  not  impossible;  but  when  we 
realise  that  the  condemnation  had  been  brought  about 
quickly  and  quietly  and  that  the  guard  with  their 
prisoner  hvuried  out  of  the  city,  the  attendance  of  a 
crowd  seems  quite  improbable,  while  the  twelfth  chap- 
ter of  the  book  of  Zechariah  seems  to  have  suggested 
to  the  author  scenes  which  he  thought  must  have 
occurred  at  this  time. 

There  was  a  proverb  in  the  Jewish  collection  of 
proverbs  (Prov.  xxxi,  6):  "Give  strong  drink  unto 
him  that  is  ready  to  perish,  and  wine  unto  those  that 
be  of  heavy  hearts."  In  accordance  with  this,  the 
Babylonian  Talmud  contained  the  following  pro- 
vision: "When  one  is  taken  out  to  be  executed  there 
is  (to  be)  given  him  a  piece  of  the  giun  of  frankin- 
cense in  a  cup  of  wine,  in  order  to  deaden  his  conscious- 
ness." 

It  is  said  that  the  ladies  belonging  to  the  upper 
classes  in  Jerusalem  always  provided  the  wine  and 
frankincense.  Mark  evidently  knew  of  the  custom, 
but  made  the  curious  mistake  of  substituting  myrrh 
for  frankincense,  confusing  it  with  a  custom  with  which 
he  was  more  familiar.  In  Greek  and  Roman  society 
the  women  are  said  to  have  often  put  myrrh  into  their 
wine,  because  it  kept  it  from  going  to  the  head. 

Matthew  afterwards  misimderstood  the  custom  and 
purpose  entirely  and  wrote,  "they  gave  him  vinegar 
to  drink  mingled  with  gall,"  a  passage  in  the  69th 
Psalm,  "They  gave  me  gall  to  eat:  and  when  I  was 
thirsty,  they  gave  me  vinegar  to  drink,"  which  he 
imagined  referred  to  Jesus,  outweighing  with  him  the 
Christian  tradition. 

Matthew  states  that  Jesus  declined  the  drink  on 
account  of  the  taste,  Mark  merely  that  "he  received 


358  The  Historic  Jesus 

it  not,"  giving  no  reason.  We  may  be  sure  that  Jesus 
wanted  to  retain  full  consciousness  and  it  is  very  prob- 
able that  he  believed  even  then  that  God  would  rescue 
him.  The  retention  of  the  Latin  word  "Calvary"  in 
Luke's  Gospel  is  somewhat  misleading,  until  one  learns 
that  "Calvary"  means  "skull"  and  was  not  the  name 
of  the  place,  but  a  translation  of  it. 

It  was  the  custom  for  the  clothing  of  the  victim  to 
be  divided  among  the  executioners,  but  this  did  not 
happen  in  the  case  of  Jesus  ^  any  more  than  in  any  other 
case,  "that  it  might  be  fulfilled,  which  was  spoken  by 
the  prophet."  Neither  Mark  nor  Luke  said  that  it 
was  done  in  fulfilment  of  prophecy,  as  Matthew  did, 
but  they  both  thought  it,  since,  in  their  misunderstand- 
ing, of  the  nature  of  Hebrew  poetry,  they  show  that 
they  had  in  mind  the  i8th  verse  of  the  22nd  Psalm: 

"They  part  my  garments  among  them, 
And  cast  lots  upon  my  vesture." 

Hebrew  poetry  consisted  in  expressing  the  same  thing 
twice  in  different  ways.  The  early  Christians,  however, 
apparently  ignored  this  fact,  as  they  did  concerning 
the  ass  and  a  colt,  the  foal  of  an  ass,  and,  imagining 
that  this  was  a  prophecy  to  be  fulfilled  in  the  life  of 
the  Messiah,  thought  that  this  passage  contained  two 
separate  statements  concerning  what  must  happen. 
They  reported,  therefore,  that  the  garments  of  Jesus 
were  divided,  with  the  exception  of  one,  upon  which 
lots  were  cast.  The  writer  of  the  fourth  Gospel 
afterwards  gave  as  a  reason  for  the  casting  of  lots, 
that  this  was  a  seamless  garment,  like  the  sleeveless 
undergarment  of  the  High-Priest,  which  Philo  said  was 
a  symbol  of  the  Logos.     As  the  ordinary  clothing  of  a 


The  Passion  359 

man  at  that  time  in  Palestine  consisted  of  five  pieces, 
a  tunic,  a  long  outer  garment,  a  girdle,  a  head-covering, 
and  sandals,  the  tradition  became  established  that 
four  soldiers  were  occupied  with  the  crucifixion. 

Mark  states  that  the  crucifixion  took  place  about 
nine  o'clock  in  the  morning  and  there  is  no  reason  to 
doubt  the  statement,  but  it  shows  how  much  the  matter 
was  hurried  by  the  priests;  for,  with  the  journey  from 
the  palace  of  the  High-Priest  to  the  court  where  Pilate 
was,  then  the  preparation  for  the  crucifixion  and  then 
another  long  journey  outside  the  city  to  the  place  of 
crucifixion,  there  was  no  time  left,  out  of  three  hours, 
for  a  lengthy  trial.  An  inscription  upon  the  cross 
declared  that  Jesus  was  ' '  the  King  of  the  Jews. "  It  was 
customary  to  put  an  inscription  upon  crosses,  stating 
the  crime  for  which  the  victim  suffered.  There  is  no 
reason  to  doubt  that  this  inscription  was  on  the  cross 
of  Jesus.  It  shows  conclusively  that  he  suffered  be- 
cause he  was  accused  of  being  a  pretender  to  the  Jewish 
throne,  but  it  shows  also  the  utter  contempt  in  which 
Pilate  held  the  whole  Jewish  race  and  especially  the 
priests,  who,  he  knew  perfectly  well,  had  delivered 
Jesus  out  of  spite,  hatred,  and  fear.  The  inscription 
was  in  Aramaic,  both  because  that  was  the  language  of 
the  country  and  because  Pilate  was  glad  to  show  his 
contempt  of  Jews.  Long  afterwards  the  Christians 
imagined  that  it  had  been  written  also  in  Greek  and 
Latin,  as  if  it  had  been  a  decree  of  the  empire  recognising 
the  royalty  of  Jesus,  which  is  altogether  improbable, 
since  very  few  in  Jerusalem  knew  anything  of  Latin, 
and  the  crucifixion  would  not  concern  those  who  spoke 
Greek  only,  nor  did  Pilate  intend  to  honour  Jesus, 
but  to  hurt  the  Jews,  by  showing  them  a  Jewish  king 
crucified. 


360  The  Historic  Jesus 

Luke  alone  states  that  Jesus  prayed  for  his  execution- 
ers in  the  words :  ' '  Father,  forgive  them :  for  they  know 
not  what  they  do."  The  words  are  lacking  in  three  of 
the  best  manuscripts  and  yet  they  are  quoted  by 
Irenseus  and  Origin,  in  the  Acts  of  Pilate  and  in  the 
Clementine  Homilies.  Opinions  are,  therefore,  divided 
as  to  their  genuineness.  Luke  assigns,  virtually,  the 
same  words  to  Stephen  and,  as  regards  Jesus,  it  is 
necessary  to  bear  in  mind  that  there  was  no  one  in 
sympathy  with  his  friends  to  tell  them  afterwards 
whether  he  said  anything  or  not.  Mark  states  that 
the  women,  who  were  present,  were  a  long  way  off. 
This  fact  needs  to  be  borne  in  mind  also  as  regards  the 
account  of  the  "reviling."  It  could  hardly  have  pro- 
ceeded from  the  common  people,  if  there  were  many  of 
them  present,  because  Jesus  had  made  a  profound  im- 
pression upon  them,  both  by  his  wonderful  personality 
and  by  his  talks  in  the  temple.  Even  if  they  were 
not  in  entire  sympathy  with  him,  they  were  in  no  mood 
to  revile  him,  while,  as  to  the  priests,  they  had  accom- 
plished their  purpose  and  it  was  their  policy  to  keep 
out  of  the  way.  They  were  also  too  busy  with  pre- 
parations for  the  Passover  to  leave  the  city.  We  may 
conclude  that  the  22nd  Psalm  supplied  the  material 
for  the  account  of  the  "reviling."  It  is,  however, 
altogether  probable  that  Jewish  Christians,  in  their 
later  missionary  work,  came  upon  the  objection 
that  Jesus  could  not  have  been  the  Messiah  as  his 
friends  believed,  or  he  would  have  saved  himself, 
while  it  is  not  impossible  that  this  conclusion  may  have 
found  utterance  at  the  time  of  the  crucifixion. 

There  was  an  early  Christian  tradition  that  two 
others  were  crucified  at  the  same  time  as  Jesus.  Mark 
calls  them  thieves  and  Matthew  follows  him,   while 


The  Passion  361 

Luke  calls  them  malefactors.  There  would  be  no  reason 
to  doubt  the  tradition,  except  that  Mark  says  that 
the  Scripture  was  fulfilled  thereby,  "and  he  was 
numbered  with  the  transgressors."  This  was  from  the 
tmknown  prophet  of  the  exile,  whose  delineation 
(Is.  liii)  of  the  suffering  Servant  of  Jahveh  proved  such 
a  valuable  quarry  to  the  Jewish  Christians  of  materials 
for  illustrating  the  life  of  Jesus. 

Among  the  many  things  for  which  we  have  to  thank 
the  patient  labour  of  a  multitude  of  honest  and  faithful 
men  is  the  fact  that  we  have  acquired  a  more  intelligent 
understanding  of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  than  was 
possible  to  Jews  nineteen  centuries  ago,  and  with  it  a 
growing  historical  consciousness,  which  is  virtually 
a  new  sense,  transforming  the  records  of  the  past  from 
a  merely  flat  surface  to  the  proportions  of  a  true 
perspective. 

Another  cause  for  gratitude  is  the  new  revelation 
that  everything  that  happens  is  the  result  of  its  ante- 
cedents and  not  because  of  a  plan  fixed  and  ordered  cen- 
turies before,  which  forces  us  to  the  conclusion  that 
no  prediction  of  events  is  possible.  For  these  causes, 
which  control  our  present  mode  of  thinking,  we  may 
accept  the  tradition  that  two  others  were  crucified 
at  the  same  time  as  Jesus,  but  not  that  it  happened 
in  fulfilment  of  prophecy.  Mark,  having  told  of  the 
"reviling,"  took  it  for  granted  that  the  two  "thieves" 
joined  in  it  and  Matthew  copied  his  statement.  The 
author  of  the  third  Gospel,  however,  who  was  a  man 
of  much  literary  ability,  seldom  let  an  opportunity 
pass  for  embellishing  his  narrative  for  literary  effect. 
He  saw  his  opportunity  here  for  drawing  an  impressive 
picture  of  the  contrast  between  a  hardened  and  a 
repentant  sinner,  and   between   a   man   suffering   the 


362  The  Historic  Jesus 

agony  of  crucifixion  and  his  immediate  prospect  of 
sharing  the  dehghts  of  all  orthodox  Jews  at  the  table 
of  the  Patriarchs  in  Paradise.  The  conversation  is 
entirely  a  work  of  the  imagination,  with  no  historical 
foundation.  The  author  of  the  fourth  Gospel  after- 
wards omitted  the  earlier  accounts  both  of  the  "reviling" 
and  the  conversation. 

§  LXXXVII:  Mark  xv,  33-39;  Luke  xxiii,  44-48; 
Matt,  xxvii,  45-54 

Mark  states  that  there  was  darkness  over  the  whole 
land  from  noon  until  three  o'clock.  Matthew  follows 
him  exactly,  while  Luke  says  that  the  darkness  extended 
over  all  the  earth  and  explains  that  it  was  caused  by  an 
eclipse  of  the  sun.  Luke  probably  did  not  know  what 
caused  an  eclipse,  nor  that  it  could  not  affect  even  what 
he  thought  constituted  the  whole  earth,  but  the  fact 
is  that  the  Passover  occurred  at  the  time  of  the  full 
moon,  when  an  eclipse  was  impossible.  The  day  may 
have  been  cloudy  and  that  fact  may  have  left  an 
impression  upon  the  minds  of  the  women  who  were 
present,  when  they  related  their  experiences  to  their 
friends,  but  there  is  good  reason  to  suppose  that  a 
prophecy  which  the  Christians  discovered  had  much  to 
do  with  the  reported  darkness.  About  eight  hundred 
years  before,  the  prophet  Amos  had  denounced  the 
crimes  and  oppressions  of  the  upper  classes  in  the 
kingdom  of  Israel  and  had  threatened  the  vengeance 
of  Jahveh.  He  told  them  that  Jahveh  had  said  (viii,  9) 
that,  when  he  came  to  judgment,  "It  will  come  to 
pass  in  that  day,  that  I  will  cause  the  sun  to  go  down 
at  noon,  and  I  will  darken  the  earth  in  the  clear  day." 
It  undoubtedly  seemed  to  the  Christians  that  this  threat 


The  Passion  363 

of  Amos  against  the  kingdom  of  Israel  eight  hundred 
years  before  was  a  "Messianic"  prophecy  and,  there- 
fore, must  have  been  fulfilled  at  the  time  of  the  cruci- 
fixion. 

But,  aside  from  this  supposed  Scriptural  authority  for 
the  darkness,  Mark,  with  whom  the  account  originated, 
is  supposed  to  have  written  his  Gospel  in  Rome,  where 
it  was  popularly  believed  that  at  the  murder  of  Julius 
Caesar  an  eclipse  of  the  sun  took  place,  lasting  from  the 
sixth  hour  until  night.  This  belief  attained  classic 
record  in  the  first  Georgic  of  Virgil,  beginning  with  the 
462nd  line.  The  enthusiastic  evangelist  must  have 
argued  that,  if  nature  put  on  mourning  at  the  death 
of  Cassar,  how  much  more  must  this  have  been  the 
case  at  the  death  of  the  great  Son  of  God.  There  was, 
therefore,  both  Hebrew  prophecy  and  pagan  precedent 
for  asserting  the  darkness.  We  have  seen  that  an 
eclipse  was  impossible  in  Judasa  at  the  time  of  the 
crucifixion.  There  was  also  none  at  the  death  of  Caesar, 
for  he  was  murdered  in  the  year  44  B.C.  and  there  was 
no  eclipse  visible  at  Rome  from  January  4,  48,  to  July 
31,  40,  while  three  eclipses,  took  place  in  the  years 
36,  35,  and  31,  during  which  years  Virgil  was  writing 
the  Georgics.  Virgil,  therefore,  may  have  recorded, 
or  he  may  have  caused,  the  legend  which  was  popular 
at  Rome,  while,  both  in  the  case  of  Caesar  and  of  Jesus, 
it  seemed  but  natural  to  those  who  adored  and  loved 
them  that  nature  should  put  on  mourning  at  their  death. 

Mark  says  that  at  three  o'clock  Jesus  cried  with  a 
loud  voice,  "Eloi,  Eloi,  lama  sabachthani?"  and  that 
some  of  them  that  stood  by  understood  that  he  was 
calling  for  Elias.  Although  the  expression,  "My  God, 
my  God,  why  hast  thou  forsaken  me?"  is  from  the 
22nd  Psalm  and  it  has  been  objected  that  one  in  such 


364  The  Historic  Jesus 

dire  distress  would  not  express  his  agony  through 
a  quotation,  yet  it  woiild  seem  the  rather  that  one 
nourished  upon  the  Psalms  from  childhood  would 
naturally  make  use  of  the  familiar  words,  and  this 
tradition  would  seem  to  be  historically  true,  both  on 
account  of  the  reported  misunderstanding  of  the  words 
and  because  it  shows  the  final  heartbreak  of  despair 
on  the  part  of  Jesus,  a  fact  which  could  never  have 
been  invented  and  which  was  so  entirely  contrary 
to  the  Christian  beliefs  concerning  him  that  it  was 
afterwards  suppressed  in  the  third  and  fourth  Gospels. 

While  there  were  no  friends  of  Jesus  present,  the 
words  and  the  misunderstanding  of  them  coiild  very 
well  have  been  reported  afterwards  by  "some  of  them 
that  stood  by."  As  regards  the  misunderstanding, 
Jesus  spoke  Aramaic,  as  did  most  of  those  present, 
but,  being  already  weak  and  faint,  he  either  said  Eloi 
so  feebly  that  they  misunderstood  him,  to  say  Eli, 
or  they  pretended  to  do  so,  for  they  might  easily  have 
known  from  the  rest  of  the  sentence  that  he  was  calling 
upon  God  and  not  upon  Elias.  Either  understanding 
him,  or  pretending  to  understand  him,  to  call  upon 
Elias,  some  one  may  have  said,  "Let  us  see  whether 
Elias  will  nome  to  take  him  down."  This  is  probably 
historical,  while  the  added  account  of  the  sponge 
with  vinegar  is  probably  borrowed  from  the  22nd 
Psalm — "They  gave  me  vinegar  to  drink." 

That  this  statement  that  Jesus  cried  out,  "My 
God,  my.  God,  why  hast  thou  forsaken  me?"  formed 
part  of  the  earliest  tradition  and  that  the  circtunstances 
under  which  it  is  narrated  make  it  seem  to  be  a  true 
record,  shows  that,  up  to  the  last  moment  of  his  life, 
he  expected  divine  deliverance,  which  would  give  him 
the   victory   by   establishing   the    Kingdom   of    God, 


The  Passion  365 

and  this  makes  it  evident  both  that  he  had  not  expected 
to  die  and  that  he  had  never  told  the  disciples  that  he 
was  going  to  Jerusalem  in  order  to  die. 

"And  Jesus  cried  with  a  loud  voice  and  gave  up  the 
ghost."  Those  who  were  crucified  sometimes  lived 
for  several  days  in  great  suffering.  Jesus  died  at  the 
end  of  six  hours  and  literally  of  a  broken  heart.'  The 
complete  shattering  of  the  most  glorious  ideal  that  ever 
illuminated  a  himian  heart  resulted  in  a  mental  agony 
which  far  eclipsed  all  physical  pain  and,  when  the  last 
ray  of  hope  faded  away,  there  came  a  sudden  clot 
upon  the  brain  and  the  greatest  life  that  was  ever  lived 
was  gone  into  the  great  eternity.  Luke  suppressed  the 
utterance  of  despair  and  substituted  a  statement  that 
Jesus  said,  "Father,  into  thy  hands  I  commend  my 
spirit,"  because  it  was  contrary  to  his  interpretation 
of  Jesus,  whose  suffering  and  death  he  believed  to  be 
a  divinely-imposed  necessity,  to  think  that  he  should 
have  uttered  a  cry  of  despair  at  the  conclusion  of  the 
willingly  accepted  sacrifice  of  his  life. 

He  therefore  substituted  a  convenient  quotation 
from  the  31st  Psalm  in  place  of  the  words  attested  by 
tradition,  and  this  necessitated  the  further  change  to 
the  statement  that  it  was  the  soldiers  who  mocked 
Jesus  and  offered  him  vinegar.  Matthew  adhered 
to  the  older  tradition,  which  so  far  as  the  words  are 
concerned  has  strong  historical  probability. 

Mark  states  that  "the  veil  of  the  temple  was  rent 
in  twain  from  the  top  to  the  bottom."  Luke  makes 
no  mention  of  it,  but  Matthew  copies  the  narrative 
of  Mark. 

It  is  perfectly  evident  that  such  a  story  is  but  the 
materialisation  of  theological  ideas  which  had  come 
into  vogue. 


366  The  Historic  Jesus 

The  author  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  had  written 
of  Christians  "entering  into  that  which  is  within  the 
veil;  whither  as  a  forerunner  Jesus  entered  for  us, 
having  become  a  High  Priest  forever  after  the  order 
of  Melchizedek  (vi,  20),  and  that  "Christ  being  come 
a  High  Priest  of  the  good  things  to  come  .  .  .  entered 
in  once  for  all  into  the  holy  place"  (ix,  11,  12),  and  then 
of  "a  new  and  living  way,  through  the  veil,  that  is  to 
say,  his  flesh."  (x,  20) .  It  was  perfectly  natural  that  the 
people,  not  at  all  impressed  by  the  imagined  symbolism, 
should  have  taken  this  figurative  language  literally, 
and  that  consequently  it  had  come  to  be  reported  and 
believed  that,  at  the  death  of  Jesus,  the  great  veil 
which  separated  the  Holy  of  Holies  from  the  Holy 
Place  in  the  temple  at  Jerusalem,  had  been  torn  from 
top  to  bottom  by  invisible  and  supernatural  agency. 

Matthew  adds  certain  embellishments  to  the  tradi- 
tional narrative.  There  was  an  earthquake  powerful 
enough  to  rend  the  rocks,  the  graves  were  opened, 
many  bodies  of  the  saints  which  slept  arose,  and  came 
out  of  the  graves  (after  his  resurrection)  and  went 
into  the  holy  city  and  appeared  unto  many.  The 
words  "after  his  resurrection"  represent  a  correction 
of  the  legend,  either  by  the  author  or  a  later  editor, 
to  harmonise  with  the  Pauline  theory  that  Jesus  was 
the  "first-fruits"  rescued  from  death. 

As  in  the  case  of  the  darkness,  Matthew  found 
abundant  material  for  the  things,  which  he  described 
from  both  Jewish  and  pagan  sources.  In  the  Book 
of  Amos  (viii,  8)  he  would  read,  "Shall  not  the  land 
tremble  for  this  and  every  one  mourn  that  dwelleth 
therein?"  and  in  the  Book  of  Isaiah  (xxiv,  18-20) :  "The 
windows  from  on  high  are  open  and  the  foundations 
of  the  earth  do  shake.     The  earth  is  utterly  broken 


The  Passion  3^7 

down,  the  earth  is  clean  dissolved,  the  earth  is  moved 
exceedingly.  The  earth  will  reel  to  and  fro  like  a 
drunkard  and  will  be  removed  like  a  cottage;  and  the 
transgression  thereof  will  be  heavy  upon  it;  and  it 
will  fall  and  not  rise  again." 

As,  however,  this  would  supply  nothing  but  the 
earthquake  and,  as  the  first  Gospel  was  written  in 
Rome,  in  all  probability  early  in  the  second  century, 
it  is  probable  that  Virgil's  accounts  of  the  portents 
which  accompanied  the  death  of  Caesar,  {Georgics, 
I.  w,  463  ff.),  together  with  descriptions  in  the  seventh 
book  of  Ovid's  Metamorphoses,  supplied  the  material 
for  these  legends;  for  they  relate,  in  addition  to  the 
darkness,  an  eruption  of  ^tna,  an  earthquake  in  the 
Alps,  the  rending  of  the  rocks,  the  waking  of  the  dead, 
and  the  mysterious  coming  and  going  of  pale  forms  in 
the  darkness. 

Mark  states  that  the  centurion,  being  impressed  by 
the  outcry  and  the  sudden  death  of  Jesus,  declared, 
"Truly  this  man  was  a  Son  of  God."  Matthew 
afterwards  thought  that  it  was  the  earthquake  which 
brought  not  only  the  centurion  but  all  the  soldiers  to 
a  like  conclusion  through  fear,  while  Luke  thought 
that  the  centurion,  impressed  by  the  gentle  spirit  of 
Jesus,  glorified  God,  declaring,  "Certainly  this  was 
a  righteous  man, "  and  then  that  all  present  smote 
upon  their  breasts  and  returned  to  the  city  under 
the  consciousness  of  having  committed  a  great  crime. 

That  these  statements  are  the  result  of  underlying 
motives  is  easily  seen.  With  Mark,  writing  for  pagans, 
it  was  impressive  to  record  that  the  conversion  of  the 
pagan  world  began  at  once  upon  the  death  of  Jesus. 
Matthew  made  his  statement  still  stronger,  while 
Luke  seemed  to  realise  that  the  officer,  if  he  were  a 


368  The  Historic  Jesus 

Roman,  was  not  a  monotheist  and  therefore  could  not 
have  spoken  of  a  Son  of  God,  while,  if  he  were  a 
Samaritan,  he  would  not  have  used  a  title  which  was 
applied  to  a  Jewish  Messiah.  He  therefore  changed 
the  supposed  theological  conclusion  into  a  moral  one, 
and  added  a  feature  intended  to  throw  the  blame 
for  the  death  of  Jesus  upon  the  priests  and  not  the 
Jewish  people. 

Summing  up  our  study  of  the  accounts  of  the 
crucifixion,  we  have  found,  as  the  most  probable  facts 
of  history,  that  Jesus  was  taken  after  midnight  on 
Thursday  by  a  company  of  slaves  sent  out  by  the  High 
Priest,  with  Judas  as  guide,  and  brought  to  the  palace 
of  the  High  Priest;  that  all  the  disciples  fled,  except 
Peter,  who  followed  to  the  palace,  but  also  fled  when 
danger  seemed  to  threaten  him  as  well ;  that  a  few  who 
were  in  the  plot  were  notified  and  came  to  the  palace, 
but  that  the  Sanhedrim  was  not  simimoned  and  that 
there  was  no  trial  before  it,  both  because  there  was  no 
time  for  a  legal  trial  and  because  a  verdict  by  the 
Sanhedrim  could  not  have  been  executed;  that  haste 
and  secrecy  were  absolutely  necessary;  that,  as  early 
as  possible  in  the  morning,  Jesus  was  sent  to  Pilate 
and  that  a  *ew  of  the  priests  who  had  influence  with 
him  requested  a  sentence  of  execution,  explaining  to 
him  that  he  might  easily  grant  it  on  the  ground  that 
Jesus  was  a  pretender  to  the  Jewish  throne  and  might 
become  dangerous;  that  Pilate  granted  their  request; 
that  there  was  no  crowd  present  and  that  Jesus  was 
not  sent  to  Herod  Antipas;  that  the  crucifixion  took 
place  about  nine  o'clock  in  the  morning  and  that  Jesus 
died  about  three  in  the  afternoon;  that  Simon  of 
Cyrene  carried  the  cross-bar,  and  that,  just  before  his 
death,  Jesus  uttered  the  cry  of  despair,  "My  God,  my 


The  Passion  369 

God,  why  hast  thou  forsaken  me?"  and  that  all  other 
details  given  in  the  three  accounts  are  unhistorical. 

§  LXXX  VIII:  Mark  ocv,  40,  41;  Luke  xxiii,  49;  Matt, 
xxvii,  55,  56 

Among  the  best  friends  of  Jesus  there  had  been  many- 
women,  some  of  whom  undoubtedly  followed  him  to 
Jerusalem,  while  others  may  have  joined  them  by  the 
way.  These  apparently  witnessed  the  crucifixion 
from  a  distance,  near  enough  to  see  what  was  done, 
but  not  near  enough  to  hear  what  was  said.  Mark 
had  learned  from  tradition  the  names  of  three  of  them 
and  Matthew  gives  the  same  names,  provided  that 
Salome  was  the  mother  of  Zebedee's  children. 

Luke,  under  the  phrase  "all  his  acquaintance," 
would  imply  that  the  disciples  were  also  present. 
He  altered  the  original  tradition  that  the  disciples 
had  fled  to  Galilee,  because  it  disagreed  with  his  theory 
that  they  remained  in  Jerusalem  and  were  there  on 
Easter  morning. 

§  LXXXIX:  Mark  xv,  42-47;  Luke  xxiii,  50-56; 
Matt,  xxvii,  57-61 

There  was  a  tradition  among  the  early  Christians 
that,  after  the  death  of  Jesus,  a  stranger,  presumably 
in  Jerusalem  for  the  Passover,  begged  his  body  of 
Pilate  and,  wrapping  it  in  linen,  deposited  it  in  a  rock- 
cut  tomb,  of  which  there  were  many  in  the  neighbour- 
hood, closing  the  entrance  with  a  large  stone.  The 
Christians  were  afterwards  sure  that  the  man's  name 
was  Joseph  and  that  he  came  from  Ramathaim,  a 
town   about   eight   miles   north   of   Jerusalem.     The 


370  The  Historic  Jesus 

tradition  may  be  founded  on  fact,  although  the 
Christians  discovered  a  prophecy  (Is.  Ixii,  9)  which  they 
imagined  referred  to  Jesus,  "And  he  made  his  grave 
with  the  wicked  and  with  the  rich  in  his  death,"  from 
which  they  may  have  developed  the  account  of  the  two 
thieves,  who  were  said  to  have  been  crucified  at  the 
same  time,  and  of  Joseph,  who  was  said  to  have  provided 
for  the  burial;  but,  if  the  accoiint  be  true,  the  man 
naturally  returned  to  his  home  and  was  not  known 
afterwards  among  the  Christians  in  Jerusalem,  who, 
however,  were  not  content  with  the  knowledge  of  the 
bare  fact,  but  gradually  added  to  it  certain  embellish- 
ments from  their  imagination,  which,  in  time,  found 
their  way  into  the  written  narrative.  They  assumed 
that  he  was  a  rich  man,  because  he  could  buy  a  tomb, 
and  that  he  was  a  member  of  the  Sanhedrim,  because 
he  had  influence  with  Pilate.  Mark  had  already  said 
that  Jesus  was  condemned  by  the  whole  Sanhedrim, 
which  would  make  it  appear  that  Joseph  had  voted  for 
the  death  of  Jesus  through  fear  of  the  rest  and  then  had 
begged  his  body  for  burial,  out  of  pity  or  sympathy. 
Luke  saw  the  apparent  inconsistency  and  stated  that 
Joseph  had  not  voted  for  the  death  of  Jesus,  a  fact 
which  he  x)uld  not  have  known.  Both  Mark  and 
Luke  supposed  that  there  had  been  a  trial,  but 
neither  apparently  knew,  nor  did  Matthew,  that  a 
criminal  trial  was  held  before  twenty-three  judges  and 
not  before  the  whole  Sanhedrim. 

The  earliest  tradition,  represented  by  Mark,  stated 
that  Joseph  laid  the  body  in  a  rock-hewn  tomb.  Luke 
added  the  embellishment  that  the  tomb  had  never 
been  occupied  before,  while,  with  Matthew,  it  had 
become  a  new  tomb,  which  Joseph  had  made  for  him- 
self.    The  embelHshments  are  due  to  the  love  of  the 


The  Passion  371 

Christians  for  Jesus  and  the  growth  of  theories  con- 
cerning his  wonderful  personaHty. 

Joseph,  if  the  account  be  true,  did  a  merciful  and 
honourable  thing  in  providing  a  place  of  burial  for 
the  body  of  Jesus,  and  it  is  quite  probable  that  Pilate 
yielded  to  the  prejudices  of  the  Jews  by  not  leaving  the 
body  on  the  cross  during  the  Passover.  The  Synoptic 
Gospels  do  not  say  what  happened  with  the  bodies 
of  the  two  thieves,  who  probably  had  not  died.  The 
tradition  that  their  death  was  hastened  was  of  much 
later  origin.  According  to  the  Roman  custom  since 
the  time  of  Augustus,  the  bodies  of  Roman  citizens 
who  were  executed  might  be  delivered  to  their  friends, 
while  the  bodies  of  those  who  were  crucified  were  left 
upon  the  crosses  imtil  the  birds  of  prey  had  consumed 
everything  but  the  bones. 

If  concessions  were  made  to  the  Jews,  as  is  possible, 
it  was  to  avoid  a  tumiilt. 

In  this  section  both  Mark  and  Luke  state  definitely 
that  the  crucifixion  took  place  on  Friday,  "the  day  be- 
fore the  Sabbath,"  the  "day  that  was  the  preparation," 
and  herein  they  correct  their  previous  error,  for, 
under  the  influence  of  Pauline  ideas,  they  had  assumed 
that  Jesus  ate  on  the  Passover  with  his  disciples,  which 
could  have  happened  only  on  Friday  night.  This 
would  have  brought  the  crucifixion  on  Saturday, 
which  would  have  been  impossible,  because  the  priests, 
notwithstanding  their  haste  to  be  rid  of  Jesus,  would 
never  have  arranged  for  a  crucifixion  either  upon  the 
Sabbath  or  upon  the  great  day  of  the  Passover.  It 
must  stand,  as  a  fact  of  history,  that  the  crucifixion 
took  place  on  Friday. 

Mark  says  that  "Mary  Magdalene  and  Mary,  the 
mother  of  Jesus,  beheld  where  he  was  laid."     Matthew 


372  The  Historic  Jesus 

makes  virtually  the  same  statement,  while  Luke  says 
that  all  the  women  "beheld  the  sepulchre,  and  how  his 
body  was  laid,"  but  adds  that  "they  returned  and 
prepared  spices  and  ointments;  and  rested  the  Sabbath 
day  according  to  the  commandment." 

§  XC:  Mark  xvi,  iS;  Luke  xxiv,  i-ii;  Matt,  xxviii  i-io 

Spices  were  for  the  purpose  of  embalming  the  body, 
but  one  does  not  embalm  bodies  which  are  expected 
to  come  to  life  again,  and  that  this  act  of  the  women 
constituted  part  of  the  belief  among  the  Christians 
at  the  very  end  of  the  first  century  shows  that  there 
had  been  no  early  tradition  that  Jesus  had  expected 
or  predicted  a  resurrection. 

Hence  we  must  conclude  that  all  passages  in  the 
Gospels  which  represent  him  as  predicting  either  his 
death  or  his  resurrection  are  unhistorical  and  are 
simply  a  part  of  early  Christian  apologetics. 

In  trying  to  win  converts  among  their  fellow  country- 
men to  the  belief  that  he  was  the  Messiah,  they  found 
it  necessary  to  account  for  his  ignominious  death  and, 
believing  as  they  did  that  he  then  occupied  a  throne  in 
heaven,  th'y  readily  explained  his  death  as  the  means  of 
his  entrance  into  glory,  and  soon  persuaded  themselves 
that  he  had  predicted  both  his  death  and  resurrection. 
The  result  was  a  fixed  belief  in  his  speedy  return  to 
avenge  himself  upon  his  enemies  and  to  estabHsh  his 
Kingdom,  which,  in  the  minds  of  the  Christians, 
had  taken  the  place  of  God's  Kingdom,  the  coming 
of  which  he  had  proclaimed. 

Thus  ends  the  story  of  Jesus.  What  follows  relates 
to  the  awakening  of  a  wonderful  belief  and  the  begin- 
ning of  a  new  religion  for  the  world.     The  sweetest 


The  Passion  373 

dream  that  was  ever  dreamed  for  the  joy  and  glory  of 
humanity  was  temporarily  dissipated,  the  grandest 
ideal  ever  presented  to  the  heart  of  man  was  temporarily 
shattered,  the  greatest,  noblest,  sweetest  life  that 
ever  illuminated  the  pathway  of  mankind  was  crushed 
out,  not  because  God  would  have  it  so,  nor  because 
He  demanded  a  sacrifice,  but  because  priests  and 
theologians  expected  thus  to  save  their  power  and 
income.  Had  they  been  permanently  successful,  a  well 
developed  philosophy  of  despair  would  have  become 
the  normal  heritage  of  the  human  race,  but,  in  their 
haste  to  protect  themselves,  they  overlooked  two 
important  factors:  the  capacity  of  the  human  race  in 
the  long  run,  for  the  things  that  are  true  and  beauti- 
ful and  good,  and  the  power  of  the  things  that  are  true 
and  beautiful  and  good,  in  the  long  rim,  to  defend 
and  estabHsh  themselves.  The  subsequent  history  of 
humanity  has  shown  that  these  ideals  of  the  head  and 
heart  of  mankind  are  in  the  nature  of  divine  forces, 
whose  growth  may  be  delayed  by  human  ignorance 
and  passion,  but  whose  victory  is  sure.  A  faith  like 
that  of  Jesus,  which  became  to  him  the  living  con- 
sciousness of  being  personally  related  to  the  infinite 
life,  a  son,  an  agent,  and  an  heir  of  God,  and  which 
made  him  seek  to  win  all  men  to  a  like  realisation  of  the 
meaning  of  life,  was  a  spiritual  germ  of  such  tremendous 
import  and  power,  that,  once  planted  in  the  human 
soil,  it  was  bound  to  grow,  until  all  men  everywhere 
should  acquire  its  courage,  its  inspiration,  and  its  hope. 
In  its  growing  through  the  ages  it  would  show 
frequent  readjustments,  as  it  emerged  from  the 
successive  and  temporary  forms  tuider  which  men 
tried  to  realise  the  ideal,  urging  the  race  ever  forward 
and  upwards,  until  it  should  become  to  every  man 


374  The  Historic  Jesus 

what  it  had  been  in  the  soul  of  Jesus,  a  divine  fire  of 
love,  courage,  and  enthusiasm. 

A  spiritual  force  working  in  the  heart  of  humanity 
is  obliged  to  find  material  form  and  concrete  expression 
from  such  elements  as  a  given  race,  age,  or  civiHsation 
supplies.  New  conditions  of  life  make  it  necessary 
that  these  external  forms  shall  be  outgrown  and  give 
way  to  new  ones,  but,  as  the  multitude  never  sees 
beyond  the  surface  of  things,  but  always  mistakes  the 
form  for  the  substance,  every  age  of  progress  sees  in 
some  way  or  other  a  repetition  of  the  crime  and  blunder 
by  which  the  priests  and  theologians  of  Judaism  tried 
to  stifle  the  faith  of  Jesus.  In  the  end,  emancipation 
is  accomplished,  truth  wins  the  victory,  and  reHgion, 
which  men  thought  was  threatened,  becomes  a  stronger, 
sweeter  power  than  before.  Thus  the  whole  history 
of  Christianity  is  but  the  record  of  how  the  leaven  of 
the  faith  of  Jesus  has  worked  in  the  Christian  part  of 
the  world  during  nineteen  centuries,  expressing  itself  in 
materials  taken  from  Jewish,  Asiatic,  Greek,  Roman, 
German,  and  other  pagan  sources,  struggling  mightily 
from  time  to  time  to  emancipate  itself  from  all  that  is 
material,  temporary,  and  local,  and  to  assert  itself 
simply  as  the  great  consciousness  of  God  in  the  soul 
of  man. 

Our  purpose  here  is  to  show  only  the  beginning  of 
this  process,  by  which  the  leaven  of  a  great  faith  has 
been  slowly  transforming  humanity,  and  to  discover 
how  the  love  of  a  few  men  for  Jesus  proved  stronger 
than  the  crushing  of  their  hopes  and  became  a  faith, 
which  is  slowly  but  surely  conquering  the  world. 

THE  STORY  OF  THE  RESURRECTION 

It  must  be  recognised  as  a  fact  of  history,  not  with- 


The  Passion  375 

standing  the  theory  of  Luke,  that,  at  the  time  of  the 
arrest  of  Jesus,  all  the  disciples  forsook  him  and  fled, 
with  the  exception  of  Peter,  who  also  fled  within 
three  hours,  and  that  they  all  returned  to  Galilee,  dis- 
illusioned disappointed,  broken-hearted  men.  At  some 
time  thereafter,  how  soon  cannot  be  known,  we  find 
these  same  men  back  in  Jerusalem  preaching  publicly 
and  boldly  that  the  Jesus  who  had  been  crucified  was 
really  the  Messiah,  that  he  had  retired  to  a  throne  in 
heaven,  but  would  soon  return  to  punish  his  enemies 
and  to  establish  his  Kingdom. 

This  is  the  most  extraordinary  fact  in  history  and 
demands  a  satisfactory  explanation,  which,  unfortu- 
nately, we  do  not  find  in  the  Gospels ;  for  the  accoimts  of 
a  physical  resurrection,  which  they  contain,  are  late, 
fragmentary,  legendary,  and  contradictory,  so  that  no 
intelligible  statement  can  be  formed  from  them.  We 
have  but  one  other  account,  which,  fortunately,  is 
from  an  earlier  date,  contains  no  improbable  statements, 
and  seems  to  represent  the  actual  facts  of  experience, 
as  they  were  known  to  the  first  generation  of  Jewish 
Christians.  This  is  the  statement  by  Paul  in  the  15th 
chapter  of  the  First  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians,  written 
in  or  about  the  year  57  A.  d.  He  says  that  he  dehvered 
what  he  had  received,  presumably  from  Peter  at  the 
time  of  his  first  visit  to  Jerusalem.  What  he  had 
received  was  that  Jesus,  whom  he  calls  Messiah, 
died  for  our  sins  according  to  the  Scriptures.  It  was 
the  fixed  belief  among  the  early  Jewish  Christians 
that  the  death  of  Jesus  had  been  prophesied  in  their 
Scriptures.  That  it  had  to  do  with  "our  sins"  was 
a  Pauline  idea,  for  the  earlier  behef  had  been  that  the 
death  was  an  act  of  obedience  and  the  condition  of 
entrance  into  glory.     He  also  received  the  belief  and 


376  The  Historic  Jesus 

attestation  of  the  fact  that  the  body  of  Jesus  was  buried, 
thus  recognising  the  death  as  real  and  not  merely  a 
syncope,  as  was  afterwards  sometimes  assumed. 
Further  he  received  the  statement  and  belief  that  "he 
hath  been  raised  on  the  third  day  according  to  the 
Scriptures."  Having  recorded  these  beliefs,  which  he 
found  held  by  the  Christians  in  Jerusalem,  he  gives 
in  order  the  accounts  of  the  various  appearances  of 
Jesus  as  they  were  related  to  him,  adding  his  own 
experience  as  the  last.  According  to  his  statement, 
there  were  six  occasions  on  which  Jesus  "appeared": 
first  to  Peter,  secondly  to  the  twelve,  thirdly  to  about 
five  hundred,  fourthly  to  James,  fifthly  to  all  the 
apostles.  This  is  what  Paul  declares  that  he  * '  received, 
and  he  adds  that  there  was  one  more  appearance, 
which  he  experienced,  "as  tmto  one  bom  out  of  due 
time." 

When  we  examine  these  statements  seriously,  we 
cannot  escape  the  conclusion  that  Paul  was  positively 
sure  that  his  experience  was  identical  with  the  previous 
ones,  which  had  been  reported  to  him;  for  he  was  not 
giving  a  tradition  at  second  hand,  but  had  had  abundant 
opportunity  to  compare  his  experience  with  those  of 
Peter  and  James  and  John  and,  no  doubt,  with  those 
of  some  of  the  five  hundred,  the  majority  of  whom 
were  still  living  when  he  wrote.  What  those  experiences 
were  we  are  not  told.  He  says  simply  that  Jesus 
appeared,  nor  may  we  take  as  actual  data  of  history 
the  three  accounts  which  Luke  gives  in  the  Book  of 
the  Acts  of  Paul's  conversion,  since  they  have  undoubt- 
edly suffered  from  embellishments  by  him.  We  find, 
however,  in  this  same  First  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians, 
which  is  an  authentic  writing  of  Paul,  the  statement  of 
certain  positive  beliefs   which   are  unmistakably  con- 


The  Passion  377 

elusions  drawn  from  the  experience  which  accomplished 
his  conversion. 

He  says:  "But  some  will  say,  How  are  the  dead 
raised?  and  with  what  manner  of  body  do  they  come? 
Thou  fool,  that  which  thou  thyself  so  west  is  not 
quickened,  except  it  die;  and  that  which  thou  sowest, 
thou  sowest  not  the  body  that  will  be,  but  a  bare  grain, 
it  may  chance  of  wheat,  or  of  some  other  kind;  but  God 
giveth  it  a  body,  even  as  it  pleased  him,  and  to  each 
seed  a  body  of  its  own.  ("His  own  body"  is  a  mis- 
translation corrected  in  the  new  version.)  There  are 
celestial  bodies,  and  bodies  terrestrial." — "It  is  sown 
a  natural  body;  it  is  raised  a  spiritual  body. " — "As 
we  have  borne  the  image  of  the  earthy,  we  shall  also 
bear  the  image  of  the  heavenly." — "Flesh  and  blood 
cannot  inherit  the  Kingdom  of  God."  Such  extra- 
ordinary and  positive  statements  of  belief  could  have 
come  only  from  one  who  had  passed  through  a  wonderful 
experience,  and  we  are  able  to  draw  direct  conclusions 
from  them  as  to  the  nature  of  Paul's  vision.  What  he 
saw  made  him  sure  that  Jesus  was  alive,  but  alive  in 
a  glorified,  celestial,  spiritual  body,  not  in  the  original 
body  of  flesh  and  blood,  which  he  was  sure  could  not 
inherit  the  Kingdom  of  God.  The  "Kingdom  of  God " 
with  him  had  become  a  heavenly  life,  not  as  with  Jesus 
the  reign  of  God  in  this  world.  The  body  which  had 
died  was  no  longer  considered.  God  has  replaced  it 
with  a  heavenly  body.  Such  was  the  belief  of  Paul 
concerning  Jesus,  and  such  was  his  anticipation  concern- 
ing all  who  acquired  the  spirit  of  Jesus;  for  the  resur- 
rection had  come  to  mean  to  him  not  the  restoration  of 
the  body  of  flesh  and  blood,  adapted  to  the  conditions 
of  life  in  this  world,  but  the  substitution  for  it  of  a  much 
more  glorious  body  adapted  to  the  conditions  of  life 


378  The  Historic  Jesus 

in  a  heavenly  world,  and  this  belief  was  the  result 
of  a  vision  which  penetrated,  illuminated,  and  trans- 
formed his  whole  spiritual  being,  and  to  which  he 
referred  afterwards  as  the  revelation  of  Christ  in  him. 
A  vision  is  the  result  of  a  subjective  experience,  not  of 
an  objective  reality.  It  may  be  none  the  less  true, 
as  the  outgrowth  of  a  sudden  and  overwhelming 
conviction  from  forces  long  working  in  the  mind,  a 
great  spiritual  fact  impressed  upon  the  soul  by  direct 
intuition,  but  taking  shape  and  substance  from  the 
material  furnished  by  current  ideas.  There  would, 
therefore,  be  two  elements  to  such  a  vision,  the  sub- 
stance and  the  form,  the  fact  and  its  drapery,  the  former 
a  permanent  reality,  the  other  local  colouring.  The 
fact  in  the  case  of  these  visions  was  the  absolute 
conviction  that  Jesus  was  alive ;  the  drapery  came  from 
the  popular  Jewish  belief  that  God  dwelt  in  the  eternal 
and  infinite  light  and  that  a  heavenly  being,  especially 
a  heavenly  Messiah,  would  have  a  body  of  ineffable 
whiteness,  radiance,  and  glory.  Such  must  have  been 
the  nature  of  the  vision  which  Paul  had,  an  overwhelm- 
ing conviction  that  Jesus  was  alive  taking  apparently 
objective  form  in  a  body  of  radiant  light. 

The  others,  whose  experiences  Paul  was  sure  were 
identical  with  his  own,  certainly  held  the  same  belief 
and  realised  it  under  a  similar  form  and  drapery,  the 
only  difference  being  that  with  Paul  it  was  the  result 
of  an  intellectual  process,  with  the  others  a  transcendent 
miracle  of  love.  The  statement  which  he  makes  would 
seem  to  be  perfectly  valid  historical  evidence  that  many 
people,  on  at  least  six  different  occasions,  and  during 
a  period  of  three  years,  had  visions  of  Jesus  in  a  glori- 
fied body,  which  became  the  foundation  for  the  belief 
that  he  was  the  heavenly  Messiah  who  would  soon 


The  Passion  379 

return  with  power  and  glory  to  judge  the  world  and  to 
establish  his  kingdom.  As  a  result  of  these  experiences, 
the  men  who  had  fled  in  distress  and  fear  went  out  with 
boldness  and  proclaimed  a  great  belief,  which,  aided  by 
the  transforming  influence  of  Paul,  became  a  new  relig- 
ion for  the  world.  Paul  does  not  intimate  in  any  of  his 
epistles  that  he  held  any  different  belief  concerning 
the  resurrection  of  Jesus  from  any  of  the  others,  but, 
as  he  never  made  any  reference  to  the  restoration  of 
his  physical  body,  we  must  conclude  that  the  resurrec- 
tion meant  to  them  what  it  meant  to  him,  the  survival 
of  the  personal  life  in  a  glorified  and  heavenly  body. 
He  declared  that  he  did  not  care  to  know  Jesus  "after 
the  flesh,"  for  to  him  he  was  "the  first-bom  among 
many  brethren,"  who  had  "put  on  immortality," 
and  for  whom  death  had  been  "swallowed  up  in  life." 
It  certainly  was  a  like  conviction  which  gave  the 
original  apostles  courage  and  enthusiasm.  The  Jesus 
whom  they  had  known  and  loved  had  been  elevated, 
as  they  believed,  to  a  celestial  throne  and  they  did  not 
think  of  him  as  sad  and  worn  with  anxiety  and  pain 
and  disfigured  by  the  cruelty  of  his  deatn,  but  as 
triumphant  and  radiant  in  heaven. 

To  Peter  first  this  vision  came — Peter,  who  had  loved 
Jesus  with  the  intensity  of  a  great  devotion,  who  had 
been  sure  that  he  must  be  the  Messiah  who  would 
restore  the  throne  and  kingdom  of  David,  and  yet 
who  had  denied  and  forsaken  his  Master.  To  Peter, 
suffering  an  agony  of  remorse  and  grief,  thinking  of 
Jesus  by  day  and  by  night,  living  over  the  familiar 
scenes,  hearing  again  the  inspiring  words,  recalling 
the  wonderful  personality,  there  came  one  day  the 
sudden  triumph  of  faith  born  from  the  depths  of 
unconquerable  love  and  he  saw  Jesus  in  the  dazzling 


380  The  Historic  Jesus 

radiance  of  heavenly  glory.  He  did  not  analyse  the 
vision,  nor  discuss  its  subjectivity,  nor  trace  the  opera- 
tion of  the  forces  which  gave  it  birth.  For  him  Jesus 
was  alive,  the  Messiah  after  all,  judge  and  ruler  of 
the  souls  of  men.  He  ran  to  impart  the  resurrection 
of  his  faith.  Then  others  saw  and  believed  and  a  great 
religion  with  a  new  hope  and  joy  for  all  mankind  was 
born. 

Such  was  the  transcendent  belief  which  sent  these 
men  out  with  overwhelming  enthusiasm,  courage,  and 
joy  to  preach  to  the  Jewish  people  that  the  same  Jesus 
who  had  lived  and  died  was  really  the  Messiah,  for 
they  had  seen  him  on  a  throne  in  heavenly  glory. 
Never  for  an  instant  did  it  seem  to  them  that  they  had 
seen  the  physical  body  of  Jesus  restored  to  life,  for 
the  resurrection  certainly  meant  to  them  what  it 
afterwards  meant  to  Paul,  the  continuity  of  personal 
existence  in  a  spiritual  and  glorified  body.  It  was 
this  original  belief  in  a  spiritual  body  which  afterwards 
held  so  prominent  a  place  in  the  various  Gnostic 
systems  and  it  may  have  had  its  origin  in  the  Greek 
Mysteries. 

When,  however,  we  examine  the  Gospel  narratives, 
we  find  nothing  of  the  original  facts,  nothing  of  the 
original  faith  or  preaching,  nothing  corresponding  to 
Paul's  statement  as  to  what  he  had  received  directly 
from  the  founders  of  the  Christian  belief. 

There  is  only  a  hint,  as  the  relic  of  an  earlier  and 
true  tradition,  that  the  earliest  appearances  had  been 
seen  in  Galilee  and  there  is  the  story  of  the  transfigur- 
ation, which  is  probably  a  tradition  of  one  of  the 
spiritual  experiences,  but  which  is  put  back  to  a  period 
before  the  death  of  Jesus,  while  the  tradition  of  its 
proper  place  is  preserved  in  the  statement  that  the 


The  Passion  381 

disciples  did  not  mention  their  experience  until  after 
the  resurrection. 

Aside  from  these  two  relics  from  an  earlier  generation, 
the  Gospel  narratives  reflect  and  record  the  effort 
of  a  later  generation  to  explain  to  themselves  and  others, 
mostly  foreigners,  a  faith  which  far  transcended  their 
experience  and  for  which  they  had  not  the  spiritual 
capacity.  The  resurrection  had  ceased  to  be  a  spirit- 
ual fact,  and  faith  had  come  to  mean  a  belief  in 
the  restoration  to  life  of  the  physical  body  of  Jesus. 
Questions  were  asked,  objections  were  raised,  tangible 
evidence  was  demanded,  and  this  process  by  which 
a  spiritual  faith  became  materialised  is  recorded  in 
the  Gospels,  the  various  narratives  of  which  it  is  now 
necessary  to  analyse. 

§  XC:  Mark  xvi,  1-8;  Luke  xxiv,  i-ii;  Matt,  xxviii,  i-io 

While  the  belief  in  a  spiritual  body,  material  indeed 
and  very  real,  was  the  inspiring  new  belief  in  the  first 
Christian  generation,  there  was  at  the  same  time  a 
wide-spread  popular  belief,  at  least  among  Persians 
and  Jews,  that  the  dead  were  only  asleep  and  might 
at  any  time  be  awakened  and  resume  the  former  life 
in  the  original  body,  nor  had  a  generation  passed 
away  before  the  popular  belief  had  suppressed  the 
spiritual  faith  as  concerned  the  resurrection  of  Jesus 
and  men  had  begun  to  argue  that,  if  Jesus  were  seen 
alive  after  his  death,  it  must  have  been  in  his  original 
body.  The  question,  therefore,  naturally  arose  as  to 
how  the  original  body  escaped  from  the  tomb.  In 
answer  to  this  question  a  legend  began  to  grow  that 
certain  women  had  found  the  tomb  vacant  on  the 
Sunday  morning  after  the  crucifixion.  The  tradition 
was  too  well  established  that  the  disciples  had  fled 


382  The  Historic  Jesus 

to  Galilee  for  them  to  serve  at  first  as  the  supposed 
witnesses  of  a  vacant  tomb,  but  tradition  had  reported 
that  some  of  the  women  from  Galilee  had  remained 
in  Jerusalem  and  witnessed  the  crucifixion.  They 
were,  therefore,  the  only  available  witnesses  for  a 
vacant  tomb.  Mark  gives  the  earliest  form  of  the 
legend  of  a  physical  resurrection,  which  discovered  a 
motive  for  the  women's  remaining  in  Jerusalem  in 
their  intention  to  embalm  the  body  of  Jesus  on  Simday 
morning.  This  contradicts  his  previous  statements 
that  Jesus  had  predicted  his  resurrection  to  all  his 
friends,  for  the  women  would  not  have  made  arrange- 
ments to  embalm  a  body  which  they  expected  would 
return  to  life.  The  tradition  says  that  on  the  way  to 
the  tomb  the  women  wondered  who  would  roll  away 
the  stone,  for  it  was  very  great,  but  that,  on  arriving 
at  the  tomb,  they  found  it  already  rolled  away. 
Entering  in  they  saw  a  young  man  wearing  a  priestly 
vestment  sitting  on  the  right  side  and  they  were  afraid. 
He  said  to  them:  "Be  not  affrighted:  Ye  seek  Jesus 
of  Nazareth,  which  was  crucified ;  he  is  risen :  he  is 
not  here :  behold  the  place  where  they  laid  him.  But  go 
your  way,  tell  his  disciples  and  Peter  that  he  goeth 
before  you  irto  Galilee;  there  you  will  see  him,  as  he 
said  unto  you." 

The  reference  to  Peter  and  to  Galilee  is  a  survival 
from  the  earlier  and  true  tradition  that  Peter  was  the 
first  to  have  a  vision  and  that  he  was  in  Galilee  at  the 
time.  But  already  the  earlier  faith  had  started  on  the 
way  of  its  transformation  to  a  materialistic  belief. 
The  first  step  lay  in  the  thought  that  the  heavenly 
body  must  be  the  original  physical  body  transfigured, 
"swallowed  up  of  life,"  clothed  upon  with  the  "habita- 
tion from  heaven." 


The  Passion  383 

This  interpretation  of  the  behef  necessitated  the 
disappearance  of  the  physical  body  and  this  is  all  that 
the  earliest  narrative  in  the  Gospel  relates.  The  women 
found  the  tomb  vacant.  The  body  of  Jesus  had 
disappeared.  This  was  what  was  believed  among  the 
Christians  about  the  year  70  A.D.  There  was  no 
account  of  any  appearances  of  Jesus  in  Jerusalem  or 
its  neighbourhood.  It  is  not  even  stated  that  the 
women,  who  had  been  charged  by  the  "young  man" 
to  tell  his  disciples  and  Peter  that  they  would  see  Jesus 
in  Galilee,  did  as  they  were  told,  but  that  they  fled  in 
fear  and  said  nothing  to  anyone. 

Here  Mark's  Gospel  comes  to  a  sudden  and  abrupt 
termination.  Something  that  followed  was  apparently 
suppressed,  because  it  did  not  agree  with  later  beliefs 
and  traditions,  and  its  place  supplied  by  extracts  from 
the  later  Gospels.  It  is  more  than  probable  that  the 
part  suppressed  related  to  the  experiences  of  Peter  and 
others  in  Galilee  and  the  probability  is  strengthened 
by  the  fragment  of  the  Gospel  according  to  Peter 
discovered  in  the  year  1892. 

For  we  read:  "Now,  after  the  close  of  the  feast 
of  unleavened  bread,  as  all  the  guests  entered  upon 
their  homeward  journey,  they  also  all  returned,  sad- 
dened by  what  had  happened,  to  their  Galilean  homes. 
But  I,  Simon  Peter,  and  my  brother  Andrew  took  our 
nets  and  went  to  the  lake,  and  there  was  with  us  Levi, 
the  son  of  Alphaeus,  whom  the  Lord — "  Here, 
unfortunately,  the  fragment  comes  to  an  end,  but  it 
would  seem  as  if  immediately  thereafter  there  must  have 
followed  an  account  of  the  first  of  those  remarkable 
experiences  which  convinced  those  who  had  them  that 
Jesus  was  alive. 

Here,  then,  the  tradition  rested  for  a  while,  but  not 


384  The  Historic  Jesus 

for  long.  Jesus  was  alive  and  had  become  the  heavenly 
Messiah.  His  human  body  had  been  changed  into 
a  glorious  body.  Therefore,  there  was  a  vacant  tomb. 
But  neither  a  spiritual  fact,  nor  the  supposed  objectivity 
of  a  spiritual  vision,  could  long  resist  the  materialistic 
tendencies  of  undeveloped  minds,  nor  the  activities 
of  the  unrestrained  imagination,  nor  the  objections 
and  questionings  of  critics. 

Luke,  in  the  first  eleven  verses  of  the  twenty-fourth 
chapter  of  his  Gospel,  shows  that  he  was  entirely 
famiUar  with  the  early  tradition,  but  he  already  begins 
to  transform  it  in  the  interest  of  his  theory  that  all 
the  appearances  occurred  in  Jerusalem  and  not  in 
Galilee.  He  suppresses  the  supposed  commission 
to  the  women  to  tell  the  disciples  to  go  to  Galilee  in 
order  to  see  Jesus  and  merely  mentions  Galilee  as  the 
place  where  Jesus  had  foretold  his  resurrection. 
Matthew  changed  the  earlier  tradition  still  more. 
With  him,  the  women  do  not  go  out  to  embalm  the 
body,  but  simply  "to  see  the  sepulchre."  They  do 
not  wonder  who  will  roll  away  the  stone,  but  there  is 
a  great  earthquake,  an  angel  descends  from  heaven, 
rolls  away  the  stone,  and  sits  upon  it.  If  the  angel 
were  able  .0  roll  away  the  stone,  one  does  not  see  the 
need  of  the  earthquake.  Matthew  abides  by  the  earlier 
tradition  that  the  visions  to  the  disciples  took  place 
in  GaHlee  and  yet  adopts  Luke's  theory  that  the 
disciples  were  still  in  Jerusalem. 

The  women,  who  in  the  tradition  of  Mark's  time 
had  said  nothing  to  anyone  concerning  what  they  had 
seen  and  heard,  now  ran  with  great  joy  to  bring 
the  disciples'  word.  Finally,  according  to  Matthew, 
Jesus  himself  appears  to  the  women,  not  at  all  as  a 
vision  and  not  in  heavenly  glory,  but  in  his  original 


The  Passion  385 

body  of  flesh  and  blood  and,  that  there  may  be  no 
doubt  about  it,  the  women  hold  him  by  the  feet. 
The  belief  has  become  entirely  materialised,  since 
Mark  wrote,  probably  fifty  years  before,  for  to  the 
empty  tomb  has  been  added  the  appearance  of  the 
physical  body  of  Jesus.  It  was  inevitable  that  the  be- 
lief should  become  more  and  more  material,  ever  since 
it  began  to  depart  from  the  overwhelming  impression 
of  the  spiritual  visions  which  gave  the  founders  of 
Christianity  their  faith  and  courage. 

The  story  of  the  vacant  tomb  represented  the  first 
yielding  in  the  interest  of  materialism.  In  the  first  glow 
of  enthusiasm  and  joy,  which  sent  men  out  to  tell  the 
story  of  a  heavenly  and  glorified  Jesus,  no  one  had 
thought  of  his  human  body,  yet,  before  a  generation  had 
passed  away,  the  thought  became  inevitable  that  a  body, 
which  had  been  "transformed,"  "transfigured,"  "clothed 
upon,"  "swallowed  up  of  life,"  required  the  disappear- 
ance of  the  physical  body.  By  the  time  that  this  demand 
made  itself  seriously  felt  there  was  no  one  to  tell  where 
the  body  of  Jesus  had  been  entombed.  It  was  known 
that  the  disciples  had  fled,  but  a  tradition  related  that 
some  women  from  Galilee  had  witnessed  the  crucifixion 
from  a  distance.  When,  therefore,  the  demand  to  know 
what  had  become  of  the  body  of  Jesus  made  itself  felt, 
it  became  a  simple  matter  for  these  women  to  do  duty 
in  tradition  as  witnesses  that  the  tomb  of  Jesus  had 
been  found  vacant  by  them.  This  effort  of  the  early 
Christians  to  furnish  evidence  of  a  physical  resurrection, 
in  place  of  the  earlier  spiritual  belief,  became  the 
source  of  much  mischief;  for  it  was  the  entering  wedge 
by  means  of  which  a  materialised  belief  eventually 
took  the  place  of  a  great  faith  and  force  in  the  spiritual 
consciousness.     It  is  no  more  a  fact  of  history  than  any 


386  The  Historic  Jesus 

of  the  later  legends  which  were  built  upon  it.  Matthew's 
Gospel  shows  that,  before  his  time,  the  Jewish  opponents 
to  the  belief  of  the  Christians  had  answered  the  story 
of  the  vacant  tomb  by  saying  that  if  the  tomb  were 
vacant,  it  was  because  the  disciples  had  stolen  the  body. 
The  Christians  had  to  meet  this  objection  and  there 
grew  up  the  story  of  the  watch. 

They  said  that  the  priests  and  Pharisees  had  heard 
that  Jesus  had  predicted  his  resurrection  on  the  third 
day  and  that  to  prevent  such  an  occurrence  they  had 
requested  and  obtained  a  military  guard  from  Pilate. 

This  Matthew  had  already  related  in  the  previous 
chapter  which  was  omitted  from  the  consecutive 
narrative,  because  the  earlier  writers  had  not  heard 
of  any  such  provision.  The  story  is  absolutely 
impossible;  for,  in  the  first  place,  Jesus  had  never  said 
anything  about  an  expected  resurrection  and,  had  he 
done  so,  the  priests  would  have  paid  no  attention  to 
such  a  prediction,  since  they  denied  absolutely  the 
possibility  of  resurrection.  The  priests,  too,  were  in 
no  mood  to  ask  any  further  favours  of  Pilate,  since  they 
were  smarting  under  the  insult  put  upon  them  by  him 
in  the  inscription  on  the  cross. 

The  whole  story  is  simply  a  refuge  for  parrying  the 
Jewish  accusation  that  the  disciples  had  stolen  the 
body  of  Jesus,  and  neither  the  story  of  the  guard  nor 
the  accusation  of  theft  had  been  heard  of  by  Paul, 
nor  Mark,  nor  by  anyone  until  after  the  close  of  the 
first  century. 

Nor  until  about  the  same  time  did  anyone  imagine 
or  report  any  appearances  of  Jesus  in  and  about  Jeru- 
salem, for  it  was  a  difficult  matter  to  alter  the  early 
and  true  traditions  that  the  visions  were  seen  in 
Galilee.     It  was  the  growing  necessity  for  evidence 


The  Passion  387 

of  a  physical  resurrection  which  gradually  transformed 
the  early  belief  and  tradition.  The  earliest  tradition 
did  not  relate  that  the  appearances  of  Jesus  occurred 
at  the  same  time  as  his  resurrection,  but  at  intervals 
during  several  years,  and  the  first  one,  to  Peter,  at  least 
two  weeks  after  the  death  of  Jesus,  for  the  journey  on 
foot  to  Galilee  would  take  that  long;  nevertheless,  the 
belief  was  very  early  established  that  the  resurrection 
had  taken  place  on  the  third  day,  and  this  seemed 
so  important  a  matter  that  it  is  stated  three  times  in 
the  Gospels  that  Jesus  had  predicted  his  resurrection  on 
"the  third  day,"  while  Paul  says  that  he  was  raised 
on  the  third  day,  "according  to  the  Scriptures." 
The  early  belief  among  the  Jewish  Christians  was  that 
God  had  brought  him  back  from  Hades  and  elevated 
him  to  a  throne  in  heaven.  As  this  was  believed  to 
be  the  purpose  of  God,  it  was  concluded  that  he  would 
execute  his  will  as  soon  as  possible  after  the  death  of 
Jesus.  As  the  body  was  laid  in  the  tomb  on  Friday 
afternoon  and  as  the  Sabbath  began  at  six  o'clock  and, 
as  God  could  not  work  on  the  Sabbath,  it  seemed 
inevitable  that  the  resurrection  must  have  taken  place 
very  soon  after  the  Sabbath  was  over — that  is,  soon 
after  six  o'clock  on  Saturday  afternoon,  when  Sunday 
had  already  begun. 

It  is  said  that  the  women  came  to  the  sepulchre 
very  early  on  Sunday  morning,  but  not  that  they  saw 
the  resurrection,  only  the  evidences  that  it  had  already 
taken  place.  It  was  not  long  before  the  Christians 
thought  that  they  found  the  resurrection  on  the  third 
day  foretold  in  the  Scriptures.  A  passage  in  the 
prophecy  of  Hosea  was  especially  welcome  (Hosea  vi, 
I,  2):  "Come  and  let  us  return  unto  Jahveh:  for 
he  hath  torn  and  he  will  heal  us:  he  hath  smitten  and 


388  The  Historic  Jesus 

he  will  bind  us  up.  After  two  days  he  will  revive  us: 
in  the  third  day  he  will  raise  us  up  and  we  shall  live 
in  his  sight."  This  referred  to  a  reformation  of  Israel 
which  Hosea  hoped  for  eight  hundred  years  before, 
but  it  mattered  not.  The  reference  to  "the  third 
day"  made  it  a  "Messianic"  prophecy  and  it  passed 
into  Christian  belief  that  Jesus  was  raised  the  third 
day  "according  to  the  Scriptures." 

It  would  be  interesting  to  inquire  how  much  a  similar 
belief  in  other  religions  with  which  the  Jews  were 
famiUar  influenced  this  feature  of  the  early  Christian 
belief.  There  were  thousands  of  Jews  living  in  Egypt, 
where  for  thousands  of  years  the  whole  population 
had  believed  in  the  death  and  resurrection  of  Osiris. 
He  was  believed  to  have  risen  on  the  third  day  and  his 
resurrection  was  celebrated  annually  on  the  25th  of 
March.  In  Syria  it  was  Adonis,  who  was  the  young 
god  killed  on  Mt.  Lebanon  and  raised  again  the  third 
day.  The  universal  lamentation  for  his  death  gave 
place  to  rejoicing  on  the  25th  of  March,  and  that  the 
Jews  were  not  unfamiliar  with  the  belief  and  custom 
is  testified  to  by  Ezekiel,  who  states  that  in  his  day  the 
mourning  for  Adonis  was  actually  held  in  the  temple 
at  Jerusale"u.  A  little  farther  away,  in  Phrygia,  it 
was  Attis,  whose  resurrection  on  the  third  day  was 
annually  celebrated  on  the  25th  of  March.  Among  the 
Greeks  the  same  beliefs  and  customs  clustered  around 
the  names  of  Bacchus,  Hercules,  and  ^sculapius, 
while  in  Tarsus,  where  Paul  was  bom  and  brought  up, 
it  was  Mithras,  who  died  and  rose  again  and  whose 
resurrection  was  celebrated  on  the  25th  of  March. 
From  this  overwhelming  evidence  of  belief  and  custom 
over  a  large  part  of  the  ancient  world,  it  would  seem 
that  the  Christian  belief  early  became  not  only  material- 


The  Passion  389 

ised,  but  actually  paganised  in  its  adaptation  to  pagan 
ideas.  It  is  the  province  of  historical  criticism  to 
deliver  it  from  its  encumbrance  of  Jewish  and  pagan 
conceptions,  making  it  a  power  in  the  spiritual  life 
and  not  defending  in  its  name  the  myths,  legends,  and 
traditions  which  have  come  down  from  the  cruder 
ages  of  mankind. 

The  story  of  a  god,  who  died  and  rose  again  on  the 
third  day,  common  to  so  many  ancient  religions, 
had  its  origin  uncounted  centuries  ago  in  the  recognised 
fact  that,  after  a  long  period  of  the  waning  energies 
of  the  sun,  there  were  three  days  in  the  month  of 
December  which  were  of  equal  length  and  then,  on  the 
25th,  the  new  Sim  God  was  bom.  Three  months 
later,  at  the  time  of  the  spring  equinox,  all  mankind 
rejoiced  at  the  prospect  of  coming  harvests  and 
vintages,  new  life  and  joy.  It  seemed  as  if  a  god, 
who  had  been  dead  under  the  winter's  darkness  and 
cold,  had  suddenly  burst  the  barriers  of  the  tomb 
and  come  forth  to  save  and  bless  mankind.  Remem- 
bering the  three  days  of  uncertainty,  which  had 
preceded  his  supposed  birth,  it  seemed  fitting  to  keep 
three  days  of  mourning  for  his  apparent  death,  which 
should  give  place  to  joy  on  the  bright  morning  of  his 
resurrection.  Such  is  the  origin  of  the  theory  of  a 
resurrection  on  the  third  day,  no  more  a  fact  in  the  case 
of  Jesus  than  in  those  of  Osiris,  Adonis,  Attis,  Bacchus, 
^sculapius,  Hercules,  or  Mithras.  The  immortality 
of  the  soul  is  a  fiindamental  fact  of  the  spiritual 
consciousness  and  the  undoubted  immortality  of  Jesus 
has  nothing  whatsoever  to  do  with  the  vernal  equinox. 
It  was  the  absolute  fact  that  he  was  alive  and  that  it 
could  not  be  otherwise  which  made  itself  felt  with 
overwhelming    power    in    the    spiritual    consciousness 


390  The  Historic  Jesus 

of  his  disciples  and  became  the  cause  of  the  visions 
which  they  wove  about  it  from  the  material  of  Messi- 
anic ideas  which  were  prominent  in  their  minds.  Their 
actual  faith  is  a  permanent  reality,  ours  as  much  as 
theirs.  Jesus  is  alive,  because  the  soul  is  immortal 
and  is  imaflected  by  what  may  happen  to  the  body. 
The  form  by  which  this  belief  was  made  real  to  the 
disciples  was  an  incident  of  their  mental  equipment, 
and  neither  had  it  any  objective  reality,  nor  is  it  to 
us  any  disclosure  of  actual  facts.  For  us  Jesus  is  not 
the  heavenly  Messiah,  and  our  belief  in  his  immortahty 
is  dependent  neither  upon  the  visions  of  the  early  years 
after  the  crucifixion,  nor  upon  the  later  traditions  of 
a  physical  resurrection,  but  upon  the  fundamental 
fact  of  our  consciousness  that  the  qualities  of  soul 
which  he  manifested  are  evidences  of  inherent  im- 
mortality. 

LATER  LEGENDS 

Luke  xxiv,  12-53 

The  change  in  Christian  belief  from  spirituality  to 
materialisrp,was  radical  and  most  unfortunate. 

The  belief  that  Jesus  was  alive  and  that  many  had 
seen  him  in  a  spiritual  body  and  in  heavenly  glory 
gave  way  step  by  step  to  the  totally  different  belief 
that  his  physical  body  had  come  to  life  again,  and  for 
this  an  ever-increasing  amount  of  evidence  was  demand- 
ed until  enough  had  accumulated  to  apparently  satisfy 
all  incredulity. 

The  change  began  with  the  story  of  the  vacant  tomb. 
Some  of  the  women,  it  was  said,  had  found  it  vacant. 
This  did  not  long  satisfy,  for  the  evidence  of  women 


The  Passion  391 

counted  for  nothing  among  the  Jews,  and,  as  the 
Chiirch  developed  its  organisation  and  power,  the 
feeHng  grew  up  that  apostoHc  authority  was  the  only 
reliable  source  for  belief  and  practice.  Luke  supplied 
the  demand  for  better  evidence  than  that  furnished 
by  the  supposed  story  of  the  women  for  the  vacant 
tomb.  He  brings  Peter  upon  the  scene  and  relates 
that  he  ran  to  the  tomb,  stooped  down  and  looked  in 
and  saw  the  linen  cloths  by  themselves,  and  that  then 
he  departed  to  his  home.  According  to  the  earlier 
tradition,  Peter  was  already  on  the  way  to  Galilee; 
also,  according  to  the  earlier  tradition,  the  women  were 
too  frightened  to  say  anything  to  anyone;  but, 
according  to  Luke,  they  told  the  apostles,  who  were 
still  in  Jerusalem.  Luke  did  violence  to  all  the  early 
tradition  that  the  disciples  had  fled  on  Thursday 
night  and  that  the  experiences  which  revived  their 
faith  were  had  in  Galilee,  because  it  seemed  to  him  more 
dignified  and  fitting  that  the  new  religion,  which  had 
grown  to  quite  respectable  proportions  in  his  day, 
should  have  had  its  wonderful  beginning  in  Jerusalem 
and  not  in  the  obscure  comer  of  an  unimportant 
province,  and  that  apostolic  authority  for  the  vacant 
tomb  was  necessary. 

One  need  not  suppose  that  he  invented  all  the  tales 
which  he  relates.  He  undoubtedly  foim^d  many  of 
them  in  circulation  and  combined  them  often  with 
much  ingenuity,  poetic  insight,  and  literary  ability. 
In  this  way  one  may  write  a  very  interesting  book, 
but  it  is  not  history. 

The  story  of  the  two  disciples  on  the  way  to  Emmaus 
on  Sunday  afternoon  is  an  allegory  of  much  poetic 
beauty,  the  apologetic  purpose  of  which  is  perfectly 
evident.     Jesus   is   said    to    have    joined    them,   but, 


392  The  Historic  Jesus 

being  prevented  by  supernatural  influence,  they  did 
not  recognise  him  either  from  his  appearance  or  from 
his  voice.  Feigning  ignorance  of  the  great  events 
which  they  were  discussing,  he  asked  if  it  were  not 
necessary  for  the  Messiah  to  suffer  as  Jesus  had,  as 
the  means  of  his  entrance  into  glory,  and  then  expound- 
ed to  them  the  supposed  references  to  the  Messiah 
throughout  all  the  Jewish  Scriptures.  This  represents 
the  belief  of  many  Christians  at  the  time  when  Luke's 
Gospel  was  written,  but  it  did  not  occur  to  the  author 
that,  if  Jesus  had  come  to  life  in  his  physical  body 
on  the  third  day  after  his  death,  he  would  not  have 
changed  the  method  and  content  of  his  teaching  so 
completely  as  this  account  assumes.  He  had  never 
talked  about  himself,  nor  claimed  to  be  the  Messiah, 
nor  referred  to  the  Jewish  Scriptures  as  prophetic 
of  his  life  in  any  way.  His  whole  enthusiasm  had 
been  expended  upon  the  Kingdom  of  God  and  all  his 
efforts  had  been  directed  to  the  preparation  of  the 
Jewish  people  for  worthy  citizenship  in  it. 

The  narrative  goes  on  to  state  that  the  two  disciples 
persuaded  Jesus  to  spend  the  night  with  them  and  that, 
as  they  were  eating,  "He  took  the  bread  and  blessed 
it  and  bra' e  and  gave  it  to  them;  and  their  eyes 
were  opened  and  they  knew  him;  and  he  vanished  out 
of  their  sight!  Then  they  returned  to  Jerusalem  and 
reported  to  the  'eleven'  what  had  happened,  and  how 
he  was  known  of  them  in  the  breaking  of  the  bread." 

Many  years  after  this  supposed  event,  the  breaking 
of  bread  had  become  an  established  custom  among 
the  Christians  and,  by  means  of  it,  they  strengthened 
their  loyalty  and  reminded  themselves  of  the  solidarity 
of  their  faith,  as  had  the  eleven  at  the  Last  Supper; 
but  this  account  states  that,  three  days  after  the  Last 


The  Passion  393 

Supper,  two  men  who  were  not  present  at  it  were  made 
to  recognise  the  mysterious  stranger  as  Jesus  through 
the  breaking  of  bread.  It  is  manifestly  impossible, 
and  the  legend  is  simply  one  of  the  efforts  of  the  early 
Christians  to  satisfy  the  demand  for  witnesses  in 
Jerusalem  of  a  physical  resurrection.  The  account 
proceeds  to  still  more  positive  evidence.  As  the  two 
were  relating  their  experience,  Jesus  suddenly  appeared 
and  they  were  frightened,  supposing  that  they  saw  a 
ghost.  It  is  quite  probable  that  the  criticism  was  often 
made  of  the  Christian  belief  that  the  resurrection  of 
Jesus  could  not  have  been  a  reality,  because  the 
Christians  had  never  seen  anything  but  a  ghost.  Luke 
meets  that  criticism  and  settles  it  by  relating  that  the 
apostles  themselves  at  first  thought  that  they  saw  a  ghost , 
but  that  Jesus  had  set  the  matter  at  rest  by  showing 
them  his  hands  and  his  feet  and  inviting  them  to  feel 
of  him  and  see  for  themselves  that  he  was  real  flesh  and 
blood.  We  are  a  long  way  from  the  spiritual  visions 
of  Jesus  in  heavenly  glory,  which  filled  the  souls  of  the 
first  apostles  with  their  glowing  enthusiasm  and  over- 
whelming power,  and  have  descended  from  a  scene 
of  celestial  exaltation  and  victory  to  the  tangible 
demonstration  of  a  physical  resurrection.  But  there 
is  more  to  come.  Some  miraculous,  supernatural 
influence  might  have  made  the  apostles  think  that  they 
looked  upon  actual  wounds  and  felt  of  real  flesh  and 
blood,  but  there  could  be  no  delusion  about  the  matter 
of  eating.  To  close  the  last  possibility  of  questioning 
or  doubt,  Jesus  asks  for  something  to  eat,  and  they 
give  him  some  broiled  fish. 

Materialism  has  won  the  victory  over  spiritual 
faith  and  henceforth  for  centuries  a  Christian  world 
would  believe  both  that  Jesus  survived  death,  because 


394  The  Historic  Jesus 

the  body  returned  to  life  and  resumed  all  physical 
functions,  and  that  immortality  means  for  us  a  like 
return  to  physical  conditions,  with  all  the  limitations 
of  the  body  restored  and  perpetuated.  The  inheritance 
of  the  unfortunate  transformation  of  the  Christian 
faith  from  a  glowing  spiritual  consciousness  to  a  hard 
and  rank  materialism  has  actually  deadened  the 
spiritual  consciousness  of  Christendom  through  all 
the  intervening  centuries  and  made  it  impossible  for 
millions  of  men  to  conceive  of  immortality  except 
in  terms  of  the  physical  life. 

Luke  has  still  more  to  relate.  After  Jesus  had 
completed  the  evidence  of  his  restoration  to  physical 
life  by  eating  broiled  fish,  he  is  said  to  have  explained 
to  them  that  it  had  been  necessary  for  him  to  carry  out 
the  role  which  had  been  laid  out  for  him  in  the  Pen- 
tateuch, the  Prophecies,  and  thePsalms.  This  supposed 
role  was  the  result  of  a  forcible  misinterpretation  of 
the  Jewish  Scriptures  at  the  hands  of  the  Christians 
in  order  to  prove  their  theory  that  he  was  the  Messiah. 
They  did  him  a  grievous  wrong,  with  great  violence  to 
historical  truth,  in  pretending  that  he  was  respon- 
sible for  so  much  folly,  either  during  his  life  or  after 
his  death.  ^)n  the  contrary,  he  had  distinctly  warned 
them  against  the  leaven  of  the  Pharisees,  in  which  all 
their  perversions  of  the  Scriptures  had  their  root. 

Luke  goes  still  further.  He  says  that  Jesus  told 
those  present  that  repentance  and  remission  of  sins 
were  to  be  preached  in  his  name  unto  all  nations, 
beginning  at  Jerusalem,  The  belief  that  Christianity 
was  intended  and  destined  to  be  a  religion  for  all  the 
world  had  become  well  established  by  the  end  of  the 
first  century,  but  it  was  due  largely  to  the  determination, 
energy,  and  success  of  Paul.     Jesus  had  had  no   such 


The  Passion  395 

idea  and  had  taught  nothing  of  the  sort.  He  beHeved 
that  his  mission  was  only  to  the  lost  sheep  of  the 
house  of  Israel,  and  his  purpose  to  prepare  them  for 
the  Kingdom  of  God,  which  was  coming  so  soon  that 
any  thought  of  a  world-wide  mission  was  impossible. 
It  is  certain  that,  if  the  original  apostles  had  received 
from  Jesus  any  such  idea,  they  would  not  have  opposed 
so  bitterly  the  effort  of  Paul  to  proclaim  a  religion  free 
from  all  barriers  between  Gentiles  and  Jews. 

Nor  did  Jesus  ever  preach  about  the  "remission  of 
sins."  He  begged  men  to  forsake  their  sins,  to  change 
the  whole  tenor  of  their  lives,  and  to  develop  the 
character  and  conduct  which  would  fit  them  for 
citizenship  in  the  Kingdom  of  God;  but  he  had  no 
theories  and  taught  no  doctrines  about  sin,  atonement, 
salvation,  or  any  kind  of  a  machinery  of  grace.  These 
things  were  part  of  the  "leaven  of  the  Pharisees" 
and,  in  their  doctrinal  form,  were  injected  into  the  new 
religion  by  Paul. 

As  regards  sin  and  forgiveness,  his  positive  teaching 
was  that  forgiveness  was  emancipation  from  the  power 
of  evil  habit  by  a  new  love  of  righteousness  awakened 
in  the  heart. 

Paul's  ideas  won  the  victory  in  time,  being  helped 
very  much  by  the  destruction  of  the  temple,  and, 
when  once  established,  it  seemed  to  the  Christians  that 
both  the  ideas  and  the  command  had  come  from  Jesus. 
In  the  supposed  command  to  the  apostles  to  tarry  in 
Jerusalem  imtil  they  received  power  from  on  high, 
Luke  cuts  away  the  ground  entirely  from  the  only 
real  history  which  had  to  do,  at  least  primarily,  with 
visions  of  Jesus  in  Galilee, 

In  the  two  traditions,  which  Luke  has  combined, 
he  represents  two  different  planes  of  belief.     The  two 


396  The  Historic  Jesus 

men  on  the  way  to  Emmaus  are  an  illustration  of  the 
Pauline  belief.  They  do  not  recognise  Jesus  "after 
the  flesh,"  but  their  hearts  bum  within  them  as  new 
interpretations  are  given  to  the  Scriptures.  Finally, 
they  recognise  him  in  the  breaking  of  bread  and  then 
he  vanishes.  They  have  been  led  to  their  belief  by 
the  way  of  theology  and  a  vision.  This  is  the  Pauline 
method.  The  eleven,  on  the  contrary,  are  made  the 
ecclesiastical  authorities  for  a  physical  resurrection. 
They  see  the  wounds,  feel  the  flesh,  and  Jesus  eats 
broiled  fish.  This  was  the  sort  of  evidence  which  a 
later  generation  wanted  and  by  means  of  it  the  belief 
in  a  physical  resurrection  was  established.  Luke 
completes  the  legends  of  Easter  Day  by  relating  that 
Jesus  "led  them  out  until  they  were  over  against 
Bethany :  and  he  lifted  up  his  hands  and  blessed  them. 
And  it  came  to  pass,  while  he  blessed  them,  he  parted 
from  them  and  was  carried  up  into  heaven."  The 
same  author,  who  wrote  Luke's  Gospel,  afterwards 
wrote  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  in  which  he  states 
that  Jesus  appeared  to  the  apostles  "by  the  space  of 
forty  days,"  after  which  he  was  "taken up."  Either 
the  words  in  the  Gospel — "and  was  carried  up  into 
heaven" — are  .a  later  interpolation,  or  the  author  of 
the  "Acts"  forgot  what  he  had  written  in  the  Gospel. 
They  are  not  in  some  manuscripts,  but,  even  if  they 
are  omitted,  this  passage  states  that  Jesus  "parted 
from  them,"  which  is  in  conflict  with  the  later  statement 
in  the  Book  of  the  Acts.  By  the  time  the  Book  of  the 
Acts  was  written  the  Christians  had  increased  greatly 
in  numbers  and  had  acquired  a  form  of  organisation 
which,  following  the  precedent  set  by  Paul,  they  had 
learned  to  call  the  "  Church."  They  had  also  begun  to 
imagine  that  the  "Church"  was  identical  with  the 


The  Passion  397 

Kingdom  of  God,  which  had  formed  the  burden  of  the 
preaching  of  Jesus.  As  the  new  organisation  was  very- 
early  flooded  with  a  great  variety  of  doctrines,  theo- 
ries, traditions,  and  observances,  coming  from  many 
sources,  it  became  necessary  to  discover  some  author- 
ity which  should  decide  what  was  true  and  what  was 
proper. 

The  apostles  seemed  to  be  the  natural  authority  as  to 
the  teaching  of  Jesus,  but,  as  he  had  taught  no  dogmas, 
established  no  rules,  and  appointed  no  ritual  during 
his  life,  there  was  no  source  for  even  apostolic  authority 
for  these  things.  It  therefore  became  necessary  to 
imagine  that  Jesus  had  taken  some  time  after  his 
resurrection  for  the  instruction  of  the  apostles  in  "the 
things  concerning  the  Kingdom  of  God,"  by  which 
men  understood  the  dogma  and  ritual  of  the  Church. 
Forty  was  a  familiar  Jewish  round  number  derived 
from  Babylonian  theories  and  the  forty  days  between 
the  Passover  and  Pentecost  were  convenient  and  seemed 
sufficient  for  the  purpose.  Hence  arose  the  story 
contained  in  the  Book  of  the  Acts,  and  the  supposed 
instructions  during  those  forty  days  have  been  very 
dear  to  the  ecclesiastical  mind  for  eighteen  centuries. 
That  the  account  contradicts  Luke's  statement  in 
the  Gospel  and  that  Paul,  who  had  heard  many  accounts 
of  visions,  but  none  at  all  about  instructions,  knew 
nothing  of  it,  show  that  it  is  later  in  its  origin  and 
entirely  fictitious.  Some  effort  was  made  in  still 
later  days  to  partly  overcome  the  incongruity  between 
the  Gospel  and  the  Book  of  the  Acts  by  eliminating  from 
the  former  the  words  "and  was  carried  up  into  heaven," 
and  many  modem  scholars  do  not  admit  their  genuine- 
ness. But,  whether  these  words  be  accepted  or  not, 
the  incongruity  remains,  for  the  Gospel  relates  the  final 


398  The  Historic  Jesus 

disappearance  of  Jesus  on  Easter  Day  and  the  Book  of 

the  Acts  not  until  forty  days  later. 

Matt,  xxviii,  11-20 

The  author  of  the  first  Gospel  states  that  the  story 
of  the  guard  and  that  the  disciples  stole  the  body  of 
Jesus  while  the  soldiers  slept,  was  current  in  his  day — 
that  is,  eighty  or  ninety  years  after  the  supposed  event. 
If  it  had  been  current  much  before  his  day,  some  of 
the  earlier  writers,  Paul,  or  Mark,  or  the  author  of  the 
third  Gospel,  would  have  mentioned  it,  but,  as  there  is 
no  earlier  suggestion  of  such  an  occurrence,  it  becomes 
evident  that  it  is  a  late  attempt  to  meet  an  objection  to 
the  prevalent  Christian  belief,  which  had  grown  up 
among  the  Jews  living  in  foreign  lands.  There  was 
no  longer  any  means  of  proving  or  disproving  any  such 
statement,  but  one  affirmation  was  met  by  another. 
Some  of  the  Jews  said  that  the  disciples  had  stolen  the 
body,  to  which  the  Christians  replied  that  it  was 
impossible,  because  there  had  been  a  guard.  To  this 
the  Jews  replied  that  the  guard  was  probably  asleep 
when  the  disciples  stole  the  body,  and  to  this  the 
Christians  arswered  that  they  were  bribed  by  the  priests 
to  say  that  they  were  asleep  and  that  while  they  slept 
the  theft  was  committed. 

The  story  is  full  of  naive  and  impossible  details. 
If  there  had  been  a  guard  at  all  and  they  had  anything 
to  report,  they  would  have  reported  to  their  command- 
ing officer  and  not  to  the  priests,  nor  would  any  amount 
of  money  have  sufficed  to  induce  soldiers  under  any 
sort  of  discipline,  such  as  the  Roman  discipline  was, 
to  report  that  they  had  slept  while  on  guard  duty, 
since  no  influence  of  priests  would  have  availed  to 


The  Passion  399 

save  their  lives.  Moreover,  inasmuch  as  the  soldiers 
had  become  as  "dead  men"  from  fear  of  the  angel, 
whose  "appearance  was  as  lightning  and  his  raiment 
white  as  snow,"  their  evidence  as  to  what  happened 
while  in  that  condition  would  have  had  no  value. 
The  account  of  the  guard  is  without  historical  founda- 
tion. Matthew  brings  his  Gospel  to  an  end  with  a 
piece  of  free  composition  in  the  interest  of  the  rapidly- 
growing  ecclesiastical  organisation.  The  suggestion 
for  it  was  found  in  the  statement  in  Mark's  Gospel 
that  the  disciples  would  see  Jesus  in  Galilee,  which, 
in  its  turn,  was  the  outgrowth  of  the  fact  that  at  least 
the  earliest  visions  were  had  in  Galilee.  On  this 
basis,  Matthew  gave  his  imagination  free  rein  and 
wrote  what  seemed  to  him  the  probable  result  of  an 
interview  of  Jesus  with  "the  eleven."  He  is  particular 
to  specify  "the  eleven,"  because  in  his  day  the  original 
apostles  had  become  the  source  of  authority  for  the 
beliefs  and  practices  which  were  becoming  established 
in  the  Church.  There  is  no  thought  any  more  of  a 
spiritual  vision,  no  seeing  of  a  glorified  body  on  a 
heavenly  throne,  but  an  actual  seeing  of  the  physical 
body  of  Jesus,  who  comes  towards  them  and  speaks. 
He  says  that  "some  doubted,"  but  does  not  say  that 
Jesus  did  anything  to  dispel  the  doubt.  According 
to  him,  Jesus  is  not  so  anxious  to  prove  the  fact  of  his 
resurrection  as  he  is  to  bestow  the  remarkable  commis- 
sion, which  is  to  establish  the  power  of  the  clergy  over 
the  belief,  conduct,  and  worship  of  the  Christians.  He 
is  made  to  declare  that  he  has  received  all  authority  in 
heaven  and  on  earth,  which  he  proceeds  to  exercise  by 
commissioning  "the  eleven"  to  go  and  make  disciples 
of  all  nations,  by  baptising  them  in  the  name  of  the 
Trinity  and  teaching  them  certain  observances,  prom- 


400  The  Historic  Jesus 

ising  to  be  with  them,  "the  eleven,"  to  the  end  of  the 
world.    This  is  an  amazing  transformation  of  the  teach- 
ing of  Jesus,  or  rather  the  substitution  for  his  teaching  of 
something  entirely  contrary  to  it.     There  is  no  longer 
any  thought  of  a  Kingdom  of  God,  which  is  to  come  very 
soon  and  suddenly,  no  longer  any  thought  of  prepara- 
tion for  it  by  a  moral  transformation,  an  enlargement 
of  faith  and  hope  and  an  increase  of  love,  no  longer  any 
suggestion  of  a  spontaneity  of  righteousness,  which 
shall  be  like  a  fountain  springing  up  in  the  individual 
heart.     In  place  of  all  the  simple  and  wonderful  teach- 
ing of  Jesus,    discipleship   has   become  a  mere  mech- 
anism  and  formality.       "The  eleven"  are  to  "make 
disciples"  by  baptising  them  in  the  name  of  a  new, 
mysterious,   metaphysical  God,   of  whom  Jesus  had 
never  heard,  nor  anyone  else  until  long  after  the  end  of 
the  first  century.     There  is  no  evidence  of  the  use  of 
this  formula  in  baptism  before    the  year  130  A.D., 
nor  did  it  become  general  imtil  late  in  the  second 
century.     Before  at  least  the  year  120  a.d.  baptisms 
were  "in  the  name  of  Jesus  Christ,  to  which  custom 
Paul  refers  in  the  words  (Gal.  iii,  27) — "As  many  of 
you    as    were    baptised    into    Christ."     The    Father, 
Son,  and  H^ly  Ghost  have  suppressed  "Our  Father" 
of  whom  Jesus  taught,  and  baptism,  which  Jesus  never 
practised,  commended,  nor  appointed,  has  become  the 
magical  rite  of  admission  to  an  institution  which  he 
neither  founded  nor  anticipated.     The  disciples  who  are 
to  be  made  in  this  mechanical  way  are  to  be  taught  to 
"observe  things,"  to  practise  such  rites  and  ceremonies 
as  those  in  authority  may  be  pleased  to  impose  from 
time  to  time,  while  the  slavery  to  authority  is  to  be 
perpetual,  for  Jesus  is  represented  as  promising  to  be 
with  them,  "the  eleven,"  to  the  end  of  the  world.     As 


The  Passion  401 

all  of  "the  eleven"  were  dead  when  this  was  written, 
it  is  evident  that  the  germ  of  apostolic  succession  was 
already  developed  in  the  author's  mind  and  that  he 
already  thought  of  the  new  hierarchy  as  a  divinely- 
established  despotism,  destined  to  exercise  an  absolute 
dominion  over  the  bodies  and  souls  of  men  for  all  time. 
It  is  evident  that  the  account,  which  represents  Jesus 
as  giving  sole  and  supreme  authority  to  Peter,  is 
later  than  this  statement  that  he  bestowed  unlimited 
corporate  authority  upon  "the  eleven." 

If  the  Higher  Criticism  of  the  Scriptures  should 
confer  no  other  benefit,  it  would  be  entitled  to  the 
lasting  gratitude  of  the  Christian  world  for  showing 
that  the  whole  of  this  unfortunate  narrative  is  the 
latest  of  all  additions  to  the  Gospel  and  that  it  is 
absolutely  without  foundation  except  in  the  ecclesi- 
astical imagination,  which  weaves  its  theories  for  the 
establishment  and  defence  of  power,  while  the  helpless 
multitude,  unable  to  think  and  unwilling  to  learn, 
willingly  accepts  any  new  "yoke  of  bondage." 

Mark  xvi,  Q-20 

These  verses  are  a  late  addition  to  Mark's  Gospel. 
They  do  not  exist  in  the  best  manuscripts,  while  many 
authors  of  the  fourth  century  testify  that  they  were 
lacking  from  most  manuscripts  of  their  day. 

Mark's  Gospel  terminated  very  abruptly  and  it  is 
quite  probable  that  its  original  ending  was  suppressed, 
because  it  stated  things  which  were  out  of  harmony 
with  beliefs  and  theories  which  grew  up  after  the 
close  of  the  first  century.  This  artificial  ending  was 
afterwards  made  up  from  extracts  from  various  sources. 
The  first  section,  9-14,  is  made  up  from  the  story  of 


402  The  Historic  Jesus 

Mary  Magdalen,  in  the  fourth  Gospel  and  some  legends 
from  Luke's.  The  second  contains  the  supposed 
commission  from  Matthew's  Gospel,  with  the  decla- 
ration that  baptism  is  the  means  for  acquiring  salvation. 
Then  follow  deductions  from  the  legends  of  the  apostles, 
including  the  harmless  drinking  of  poison  by  Barsabas, 
mentioned  by  Papias  about  the  year  140  a.d. 

The  account  closes  with  an  extract  from  Luke's 
Gospel  and  a  conclusion  from  the  supposed  saying  in 
Matthew's  Gospel — "Lo  I  am  with  you  always." 
Thus  the  artificial  character  of  the  addition  becomes 
evident,  as  well  as  the  complete  materialisation  of 
the  new  religion  towards  the  middle  of  the  second 
century. 

THE  CONCLUSION 

The  study  of  the  stories  of  the  resurrection  makes 
it  evident  that  there  are  two  distinct  and  contradictory 
accounts:  the  one  preserved  by  Paul,  the  other  trans- 
mitted in  the  Gospels;  the  one  referring  to  visions  of 
Jesus  in  heavenly  glory,  the  other  giving  incongruous 
narratives  of  the  restoration  of  his  physical  life;  the 
one  being  of  early  date  and  historically  true,  the  other 
much  later  and  indicating  a  materialisation  of  belief 
and  a  serious  decline  from  the  high  spiritual  tension 
which  had  established  a  new  religion  in  the  world. 

It  becomes  necessary,  therefore,  in  the  interest  of 
historical  truth,  to  discard  all  the  stories  of  a  physical 
resurrection  and  to  recognise  the  fact  that  the  belief 
and  enthusiasm  of  the  disciples  were  restored  and 
strengthened  by  visions,  in  which  they  seemed  to  see 
Jesus  seated  upon  a  throne  in  heavenly  glory.  It  lies 
within   the    province    of    psychology    to    explain   the 


The  Passion  403 

genesis  and  nature  of  visions.  From  hundreds  of 
similar  experiences  it  has  become  an  established  fact 
that  thoughts  long  dwelt  upon,  feelings  long  sustained, 
will  produce  mental  images  which  seem  as  clearly 
objective  to  the  mind  as  any  of  the  realities  of  life, 
as  Jeanne  d'Arc  said  to  her  judges:  "Whether  it  were 
good  or  bad  spirits,  I  have  seen  them.  I  have  seen 
them  as  I  see  you ;  I  have  even  sometimes  put  my  arms 
about  them."  The  religious  history  of  the  world 
abotmds  in  accounts  of  visions,  some  of  them  most 
extraordinary  in  their  distinctness  and  in  their  far- 
reaching  effect  upon  men  and  nations.  Some  of  the 
Hebrew  prophets — Peter,  Paul,  and  John — Mohammed, 
Francis  of  Assisi,  Catharine  of  Siena,  Jeanne  d'Arc, 
Martin  Luther,  are  but  a  few  among  many  who  illus- 
trate the  effect  of  visions  upon  the  religious  history 
of  the  world.  If  a  patient,  critical  study  of  all  recorded 
visions  were  made,  it  would  be  found  that  in  all 
important  cases  a  great  religious  truth  often  lay  at 
the  basis  of  the  vision,  while  the  setting,  the  drapery, 
the  details,  came  from  personal  experience,  local 
tradition,  or  popular  belief.  Applying  this  rule  in  the 
case  of  the  visions  of  Jesus,  we  should  find,  as  their 
fundamental  reality,  the  conviction  that  he  is  the 
absolute  and  permanent  interpreter  of  the  meaning 
and  value  of  life,  the  revealer  of  man  to  himself  as  the 
son  and  agent  and  heir  of  God,  and  of  God  to  man, 
as  the  Father,  ever  waiting  for  the  awakening  of  his 
sons  to  the  consciousness  of  their  divine  inheritance. 
This  was  the  Gospel  of  Jesus,  inviting  to  the  mental 
change  which  disclosed  the  realities  of  life,  and  inciting 
to  the  faith  which  united  the  son  to  the  Father,  in 
the  glad  cooperation  of  love.  This  was  what  he  had 
preached,  this  was   what   his   disciples  had  believed, 


404  The  Historic  Jesus 

this  was  what  revived  in  their  hearts  and  would  not 
let  them  believe  that  his  wonderful  interpretation  of 
life  could  be  lost  to  the  world.  As  this  faith  revived, 
it  was  inevitable  that  it  should  take  to  itself  form  and 
colouring  from  the  phantasies,  notions,  and  beliefs 
belonging  to  the  people  and  the  age.  Thus  it  came 
about  that  faith  in  the  continued  Ufe  and  influence 
of  Jesus  took  in  the  visions  the  form  of  the  Messiah  in 
heavenly  glory. 

It  is  perfectly  evident  to  any  student  of  religious 
history  that  all  belief  in  Jesus  and  all  knowledge  of  his 
teaching  would  have  died  out  with  the  gradual  disap- 
pearance of  the  little  coterie  of  friends  who  knew  and 
loved  him,  if  they  had  not  been  able  to  preach  through- 
out Palestine  that  the  same  Jesus  who  had  been 
crucified  was  really  the  Messiah,  because  they  had  seen 
him  in  glory.  It  ought  to  be  equally  evident  that 
people  of  another  race,  in  a  distant  land  and  almost 
nineteen  centuries  removed  in  time,  do  not  need  the 
same  sort  of  proofs  to  enable  them  to  believe  in  Jesus 
as  appealed  to  Jews  in  Palestine  so  long  ago.  For  us 
he  is  our  guide  and  master,  by  reason  of  his  character 
and  on  the  internal  evidence  of  his  teaching.  We  need 
no  Jewish  fi'^tions,  and  we  believe  in  him  for  what  he 
is  to  us,  not  for  what  the  Jews  imagined  him  to  be,  and 
so  we  hold  the  same  fundamental  faith  as  sent  out 
the  original  disciples  to  convert  the  Jews  and  afterwards 
the  world,  but  without  the  temporary  colouring  of 
Jewish  ideas,  and  would  say,  as  one  in  early  days  is 
reported  to  have  said :  "To  whom  shall  we  go?  Thou 
hast  the  words  of  eternal  life." 


RESULTS  AND  PROSPECTS 

TO  those  who  have  followed  the  preceding  study  with 
minds  fairly  free  from  prejudice,  it  will  be  evident 
that  the  Christian  religion,  as  we  know  it,  both  in  its 
CathoHc  and  Protestant  forms,  is  not  only  not  identical 
with  the  religion  of  Jesus,  but  is  in  many  ways 
directly  contrary  to  it,  constituting  an  obstacle  to  its 
free  course  and  its  beneficent  work  among  men. 

It  will  be  also  evident  that  the  result  of  the  Higher 
Criticism  will  be  not  the  destruction  of  rehgion,  but  the 
removal  of  the  obstacles  which  have  kept  the  religion 
of  Jesus  from  showing  itself  as  the  normal  leaven  of 
mankind,  in  developing  the  ideals,  increasing  the  joy, 
and  cultivating  the  intellectual,  moral,  and  spiritual 
natiure  of  man. 

In  proportion  as  the  reHcs  of  Jewish  notions,  Oriental 
superstitions,  Greek  speculations,  Roman  legaHsm, 
and  barbaric  imaginings  loosen  their  hold  upon  the 
increasing  intelligence  and  knowledge  of  the  world, 
the  Gospel  of  Jesus  will  take  the  place  long  ago  usurped 
by  the  Gospel  about  Jesus  and  the  world  will  listen 
once  more  to  the  Good  News  concerning  the  Kingdom 
of  God. 

For  the  Kingdom  of  God,  an  ideal  state  of  human 
society  actually  reaHsed  in  this  world,  is  the  great 
objective  point  which  a  true  religion  must  keep  before 
the  minds  of  men,  since  it  alone  offers  a  practical 
solution  of  the  problem  of  existence  and  supplies  a 

405 


406  The  Historic  Jesus 

reason,  a  purpose,  an  enthusiasm,  and  an  incentive 
in  life.  We  are  here  in  this  divine  world,  children  of 
the  Infinite  Life,  put  in  charge  of  this  magnificent 
vineyard,  that  we  may  help  God  finish  the  world  and 
produce  in  the  lives  of  men  and  women  the  intelligence, 
virtue,  sympathy,  and  grace  of  a  full-grown  manhood. 

The  idea  of  the  Kingdom  of  God  will  bear  no  resem- 
blance to  the  caricature  of  it  in  the  old  Jewish  apoca- 
lyptic literature  and  will  be  free  from  such  limitations 
as  were  unavoidable  in  the  time  of  Jesus,  for  men  will 
realise  that  it  cannot  come  soon,  nor  suddenly,  nor 
by  direct  divine  intervention,  but  it  must  loom  grandly 
in  the  future  as  the  inevitable  and  final  term  in  the 
orderly  evolution  of  mankind. 

As  individuals,  as  nations,  and  as  churches  we  can  help 
or  hinder  its  coming,  while  the  Gospel  of  Jesus  is  the 
appeal  to  us  as  individuals  to  help,  to  go  to  work  in 
the  divine  vineyard,  to  throw  the  weight  of  our  person- 
ality onto  the  side  of  God  and  to  direct  our  intelligence, 
our  interest,  our  enthusiasm  towards  the  culture  in 
ourselves  and  others  of  the  things  that  are  true  and 
beautiful  and  good. 

This  is  the  Gospel  which  the  world  will  eventually 
be  asked  to  believe,  the  Gospel  which  proclaims  the 
inevitable  establishment  in  this  world  of  a  state  of 
society  in  which  all  the  wonderful  possibilities  involved 
in  the  germ  of  manhood  will  have  blossomed  and  borne 
fruit,  and  which  invites  us  to  help  towards  the  pro- 
duction of  that  splendid  result. 

This  is  the  Gospel  and  the  only  Gospel  which  the 
churches  will  eventually  preach,  and  in  proportion  as 
they  do  preach  it  they  will  stop  "declining."  We 
hear  much  lamentation  about  their  decline,  and  are 
told  that  they  have  lost  the  poor  and  are  now  losing 


Results  and  Prospects  407 

the  rich  and  the  children.  It  is  all  true,  but  the  reasons 
commonly  assigned  are  not  adequate  to  account  for 
the  conditions.  The  age  is  not  "godless."  No  age 
is  "godless,"  except  on  a  small  scale  and  for  a  short 
time,  for  religion  is  as  natural  an  instinct  of  the  human 
soul  as  hunger  is  of  the  body,  and  if  the  men  to-day 
no  longer  flock  to  the  churches  as  their  fathers  did, 
it  is  because  the  antique  food-supply  does  not  satisfy 
the  soul-hunger  of  the  twentieth  century,  and  because 
the  new  ferment  of  life  cannot  be  forced  back  into  the 
worn-out  wine-skins  of  the  past. 

People  have  outgrown  the  dogmatic  theology  of  the 
centuries  that  are  gone,  and  it  no  longer  either  frightens 
the  ignorant  nor  entertains  the  learned,  while  so  many 
well-meant  efforts  of  the  clergy  to  convert  the  tremen- 
dous dogmas  of  other  days  into  harmless  symbols  and 
their  inventions  of  pretty  allegories  for  the  entertain- 
ment of  the  people  yield  nothing  to  arouse  the  conscience, 
to  awaken  the  enthusiasm,  or  to  stimulate  the  efforts 
of  men. 

When,  however,  the  churches  really  believe  the 
Gospel  of  Jesus  themselves  and  preach  it,  in  place  of 
the  tissue  of  fictions  which  has  hidden  it  away,  they 
will  acquire  a  new  lease  of  Hfe  and  become  batteries 
of  moral  and  spiritual  power,  real  power-houses, 
where  men  and  women  and  children  can  go  to  be 
recharged  with  faith,  hope,  love,  and  enthusiasm,  to 
be  assured  that  this  is  a  divine  world  in  process  of  its 
growth,  and  that  they  are  here  to  help  God  make  it 
a  beautiful  place,  full  of  beautiful  men  and  women 
and  children. 

Then  the  churches  will  not  be  large  enough  to  contain 
the  multitudes  which  will  flock  to  hear  the  Good  News 
of  the  Kingdom  of  God,  for  they  will  unroll  the  fasci- 


4o8  The  Historic  Jesus 

nating  pictures  of  the  possibilities  of  Hfe,  showing  that 
the  most  interesting  thing  in  the  world  is  the  human 
race  itself,  and  awakening  a  new,  overwhelming,  all- 
absorbing  enthusiasm  for  humanity,  an  enthusiasm 
pervading  all  classes  and  blossoming  into  a  realised 
brotherhood  of  the  divine  family,  obliterating  all 
artificial  distinctions,  putting  an  end  to  all  class 
antagonisms,  rescmng  the  rich  from  the  waste  of  time- 
kilHng  devices,  and  brightening  the  hearts  of  the  poor 
with  the  glad  radiance  of  hope.  For  down  through 
the  weary  ages  of  ignorance,  oppression,  and  crime 
will  be  heard  once  more  the  comforting  words  of  Jesus : 
"Blessed  are  they  that  hunger  and  thirst,  for  they 
will  be  filled;  blessed  are  they  that  mourn,  for  they  will 
be  comforted;  blessed  are  the  poor,  for  theirs  is  the 
Kingdom  of  God";  and  men  will  be  as  sure  as  he  was 
that  the  children  of  God  are  not  to  be  allowed  to  be 
hungry,  or  miserable,  or  wretched  anywhere  in  this 
great  divine  vineyard  and,  believing  this,  they  will 
set  to  work  intelligently,  not  for  the  spasmodic  allevi- 
ation of  suffering,  but  for  the  eradication  of  the  causes 
of  poverty. 

They  will  be  as  sure  as  he  was  that  in  a  realised 
Kingdom  of  God  disease  can  have  no  place,  and 
already  the  efforts  of  medical  science  are  directed 
more  to  its  entire  prevention  than  to  its  occasional 
cure,  without  perceiving  as  yet  that  this  is  a  logical 
application  and  result  of  the  faith  and  teaching  of 
Jesus. 

They  will  be  as  sure  as  he  was  that  vice  and  crime 
are  evidences  of  disease  and,  abandoning  the  anti- 
quated methods  of  punishment  and  repression,  they 
will  substitute  gardens  of  righteousness  for  prison 
cells,  becoming  as  interested  in  the  culture  of  the  human 


Results  and  Prospects  409 

vineyard  as  men  are  now  interested  in  improving  the 
fauna  and  flora  of  the  world. 

For  centuries  men  have  been  praying,  "Thy  King- 
dom come,"  without  beHeving  for  an  instant  that  the 
Kingdom  of  God  ever  would  or  could  come,  since  it 
is  a  fundamental  assumption  of  popular  theology 
that  this  world  is  a  hopelessly  wicked  place  and  that 
religion  is  merely  a  device  to  enable  a  fortunate  few 
to  escape  from  its  impending  destruction  and  to  be 
"saved"  from  the  wrath  of  God. 

For  centuries  men  have  been  praying,  "Thy  will 
be  done  on  earth  as  it  is  done  in  heaven, "  never 
understanding  for  a  moment  that  the  will  of  God 
was  to  be  done  by  them,  but  imagining  the  rather  that 
it  was  something  which  God  would  execute  upon  them, 
by  "taking"  someone  whom  they  loved,  or  inflicting 
some  other  grievous  calamity,  and  that  their  Christian 
duty  was  to  cultivate  "resignation  to  his  blessed  will." 

But  when  men  believe  as  they  have  been  taught  to 
pray,  and  live  as  they  believe,  either  the  churches  will 
be  overwhelmed  by  the  multitudes  asking  for  light, 
guidance,  and  inspiration,  or  the  vineyard  will  be  let 
out  to  other  husbandmen,  who  will  allow  and  assist  it 
to  produce  its  normal  fruits.  For,  if  a  multitude 
should  suddenly  believe  the  Gospel  of  Jesus  and  awake 
to  find  themselves  members  of  a  divine  household, 
charged  with  the  splendid  responsibility  of  helping  God 
in  the  culture  of  the  human  race,  there  would  be  such 
an  imlocking  of  the  elemental  forces  of  the  souls  of 
men  as  would  shake  civilisation   to  its  foundations. 

Forces  are  dangerous  things,  except  when  guided  by 
intelligence  and  restrained  by  power.  It  is  a  wise 
provision  of  Nature,  therefore,  that  the  sluggishness 
of  the  average  mind  should  act  as  a  brake  upon  the 


410  The  Historic  Jesus 

exuberance  of  unintelligent  faith.  But,  while  the 
progress  of  mankind  towards  the  great  religion  of  the 
future  must  be  slow,  it  is  nevertheless  sure,  and  it 
becomes  the  privilege  and  duty  of  those  whose  faith 
and  foresight  make  them  prophetic  of  the  dawn  to 
provide,  as  far  as  may  be,  those  agencies  which  shall 
handle  wisely  the  greater  forces  of  the  souls  of  men, 
lest  misdirected  zeal  should  encumber  the  world  with 
the  wreckage  of  wild  experiments,  and  the  most  prom- 
ising enthusiasms  exhaust  themselves  in  the  consuming 
fires  of  fanaticism. 

Back  of  all  the  churches,  or  of  whatever  organisation 
may  take  their  place,  if  they  shall  prove  unequal  to 
their  larger  mission  among  men,  there  will  be  great 
Research  Bureaus,  composed  of  men  of  scholarly  at- 
tainments, trained  powers  of  observation,  and  entire 
freedom  from  prejudice,  for  the  patient  investigation 
of  all  questions  which  concern  the  well-being  of  man- 
kind, for  the  gradual  elucidation  of  the  problems  of 
poverty,  labour,  the  equalising  of  the  burdens  of  life, 
health,  crime,  parenthood,  childhood,  education, 
finance,  and  government,  for  these  are  the  matters 
in  which  everyone  will  be  interested,  since  they  concern 
the  coming  of  the  Kingdom  of  God. 

It  will  be  the  mission  of  the  churches,  if  they  shall 
be  found  worthy,  aside  from  kindling  a  fire  in  human 
hearts,  to  instruct  the  multitude  as  to  the  findings  of 
the  Research  Bureaus  upon  the  problems  of  life  and 
then,  abolishing  the  little  garden  plots  of  sectarian 
fads  and  theological  delusions,  to  organise  the  people 
of  a  city  for  intelligent  and  systematic  work  towards 
making  their  fraction  of  the  vineyard  of  God  a  City 
Beautiful,  in  the  sweet,  gentle,  righteous,  joyful, 
helpful,  faithful  Hves  of  all  its  citizens. 


Results  and  Prospects  4" 

The  greatest  thing  that  could  happen  in  this  world 
to-day  would  be  for  men  to  learn  really  to  believe  in 
God  as  our  actual  divine  Father,  whose  very  life  pul- 
sates in  our  blood,  throbs  in  our  hearts,  moves  in  our 
sympathies,  blossoms  in  our  loves,  perceives  and  thinks 
in  our  minds,  and  struggles  ever  to  become  the  Hving 
fountain  of  grace,  righteousness,  and  joy  in  all  of  us. 

For  the  majority  to-day,  as  in  all  past  ages,  God  is 
little  more  than  a  name  for  the  terrors  of  the  unknown, 
a  sort  of  dark  backgroimd  of  calamity,  against  which 
men  need  protection;  but  when  a  goodly  number 
shall  learn  to  know  God  as  He  "in  whom  we  live  and 
move  and  have  our  being,"  they  will  be  lifted  at  once 
onto  the  higher  plane  of  the  conscious  dignity,  value, 
and  possibiHties  of  manhood,  and  will  find  within 
themselves  the  solution  of  the  greatest  of  all  problems 
which  is  to-day  troubling  a  multitude  of  men,  most  of 
whom  do  not  confess  it  even  to  their  dearest  friends, 
— the  question  of  their  own  immortaHty.  For  it  will 
be  the  natural  corollary  from  their  larger  faith  in 
God  that  the  children  of  the  Infinite  Life  inherit  and 
share  their  Father's  immortality,  and  that  the  stopping 
of  the  activity  of  physical  functions  simply  sets  free 
the  soul  for  a  more  satisfactory  growing  in  the  larger 
household  of  God. 

The  prospect  of  religion  and  humanity  is  magnificent 
beyond  all  conception ;  for,  as  sure  as  there  is  a  God  in 
the  universe,  so  sure  is  his  victory  in  this  vast  process 
of  the  training  of  a  human  race;  but  God  is  dependent 
upon  men.  He  has  put  them  in  charge  of  the  vineyard, 
and  must  work  in  them  and  through  them  and  by  them, 
since  the  whole  process  of  the  higher  evolution  of 
mankind  is  a  moral  and  intellectual  process  working 
from  within  outward.     The  greatest  force  operating 


412  The  Historic  Jesus 

towards  the  divine  result  will  be  the  actual  belief  of 
the  Gospel  of  Jesus,  which  portrays  the  divine  King- 
dom as  the  goal  of  humanity,  and  would  enlist  the  best 
energies  of  men  for  an  intelligent  and  organised  struggle 
against  the  obstacles  which  delay  its  coming, — the  ig- 
norance, superstition,  selfishness,  and  passion  inherited 
from  the  cruder  ages  of  mankind. 

The  time  will  surely  come  when  the  whole  religious 
world  will  be  filled  with  gratitude  and  joy  for  the 
emancipation,  which  the  Higher  Criticism  is  working, 
from  the  blunders  of  the  past,  and  in  some  future 
century  the  clergy  and  the  laity,  dehvered  from  tra- 
ditional beliefs,  whether  of  Jewish  or  pagan  origin, 
will  acquire  and  teach  and  illustrate  a  living  faith, 
sharing  with  Jesus  his  actual  love  of  God  and  man, 
entering  with  enthusiasm  into  his  expectation  of  the 
Kingdom  of  God,  and  letting  their  light  so  shine  before 
men  that  they  may  see  their  good  works  and  glorify 
their  Father  in  heaven. 

Is  there  any  question  as  to  what  we  are  to  teach  the 
boys? 

We  certainly  will  not  befog  their  minds  by  teaching 
them  the  Jewish  religion.  When  they  are  old  enough 
to  appreciate  the  interesting  record  of  the  growth  of 
a  people  from  fetichism  to  a  well-developed  spiritual 
consciousness  among  the  few,  we  will  teach  them  about 
the  Jewish  religion,  but  not  after  the  manner  of  the 
Sunday-schools. 

Nor  will  we  teach  them  the  Christian  religion  as  a 
creed,  a  dogmatic  system,  a  ritual,  a  conformity,  or 
a  submission  to  priestly  authority  and  power. 

We  will  teach  them  the  rather  the  religion  of  Jesus 
as  the  light  and  joy  and  power  of  life. 

We  will  teach  them  that  they  are  individual  mani- 


Results  and  Prospects  413 

festations  of  the  life  of  God,  that  the  power  to  think 
and  feel  and  love  and  act  is  the  very  essence  of  their 
Father's  life  throbbing  in  their  souls,  that  it  is  their 
privilege,  drawing  courage,  sustenance,  and  power  from 
the  Infinite  Fountain  of  life,  to  grow  by  that  they  feed 
upon,  developing  the  beauty  of  the  body  and  the  soul, 
cultivating  the  perceptions  and  reason  of  the  mind, 
that  they  may  enter  upon  their  divine  inheritance 
in  the  knowledge  of  the  truth,  raising  a  harvest  of  those 
graces  of  character  which  are  the  normal  adornment 
of  the  Sons  of  God. 

We  will  teach  them  that  the  chief  purpose  of  life 
is  to  serve  God  by  serving  humanity,  and  that  their 
supreme  duty,  as  stewards  of  this  splendid  divine  estate, 
is  to  seek  first  the  Kingdom  of  God,  making  their  lives 
a  positive  contribution  towards  the  victory  of  the  things 
which  lead  to  righteousness  and  peace  and  joy,  to 
faith  and  hope  and  love. 

Thus  we  shall  equip  them  grandly  for  the  work  of 
life,  for  we  shall  have  taught  them  the  religion  of  Jesus. 
It  is  the  real  thing  and  it  is  enough.     God  bless  them! 


I 


AMONG  MY  BOOKS. 


Am^lineau,  E. 
Andersen,  Friedrich. 
Anrich,  Gustav. 

Baldensperger,  W. 

Baur,  Ferdinand  Christian. 

Bittlinger,  Ernst. 

Bleer,  Friedrich. 

Bousset,  Wilhelm. 


Brandt,  W. 
Budde,  Karl. 
Chamberlain,  H.  S. 

Conway,  Moncure  D. 
Dalman,  Gustaf. 
Delitsch,  Friedrich. 

De-Marchi,  Attilio. 

Didon,  Le  Pere. 

Frazer  J  G. 
II      II      II 

Furrer,  Konrad. 

Gasquet,  A. 

Goldziher,  Ignaz. 

Grimm,  Eduard. 

Gunkel,  Hermann. 

Hamack,  Adolf. 
11  « 

Harnack,  Th. 


Les  Idees  Morales  dans  VEgypte  ancienne. 

Anticlericus . 

Das    anlike    Mysterienwesen    in    seinem 

Einfluss  auf  das  Christentum. 
Das  Selbstbewusstsein  Jesu. 
Paulus.     2  vols. 
Die    Materialisierung    religioser    Vorstel- 

lungen. 
An   Introduction   to   the   Old    Testament. 

2  vols.     {Eng.  Tr.) 
Die  Religion  des  Judentums  im  neutesta- 

mentlichen  Zeitalter. 
Hauptprobleme  der  Gnosis. 
Jesu  Predigt  im  Gegensatz  zum  Judentum. 
Die  evangelische  Geschichte. 
The  Religion  of  Israel  to  the  Exile. 
Die   Grundlagen   des   neunzehnten    Jahr- 

hunderts. 
Demonology  and  Devil-lore. 
Die  Worte  Jesu. 
Babel  und  Bibel. 

Zweiter    Vortrag   uher   Babel   und   Bibel. 
II  culto  privato  di  Roma  antica. 
Jesus  Christ.     2  vols. 
Adonis.     Attis.     Osiris. 
The  Golden  Bough. 
Das  Leben  Jesu  Christi. 
Essai  sur  le  culte  et  les  mysteres  de  Mithra. 
Mythology  among  the  Hebrews.    {Eng.  Tr.) 
Die  Ethik  Jesu. 
Schdpfung  und  Chaos. 
Das  Wesen  des  Christentums. 
Spruche  und  Reden  Jesu. 
Die    christliche    Gemeindegottesdienst   im 

apostolischen        und        altkatholischen 

Zeitalter. 
415 


4i6 


The  Historic  Jesus 


Hartman,  Eduard  von. 

Hausrath,  A. 
Havet,  Ernst. 
Holtzmann,  Heinrich  J. 
Holtzmann,  Oscar. 
Hiihn,  Eugen. 

Jedlicska,  Johann. 


Jeremias,  Alfred. 
Julicher,  Adolf. 
Keim,  Theodor. 
Lang,  Andrew, 
von  Lemm,  Oscar. 
Loisy,  A. 
Meyer,  Arnold. 
Moret,  Alexandre. 
Ninck,  Johannes. 
Peabody,  Francis  G. 
Pfleiderer,  Otto.- 


Reinach,  Salomon. 
Renan,  Ernest. 


Reville,  Albert. 
Reville,  Jean. 

Sabatier,  Auguste. 


Schmidt,  Paul  Wilhelra. 
Schrader,  Eberhard. 


Das  religiose  Bewusslsein  der  Menschheit 
im  Stufengang  seiner  Entwickelung. 

Neutestamentliche  Zeitgeschichte.     2  vols. 

Le  Christianisme  et  ses  origines.     5  vols. 

Einleitung  im  das  neue  Testament. 

Leben  Jesu. 

Die  messianische  Weissagungen  des 
israelitisch-jiidischen  Volkes. 

Die  Entstehung  der  Welt. 

Die  zweite  Entstehung  der  Welt. 

Der  Turmbau  zu  Babel. 

Babylonisches  im  neuen  Testament. 

Die  Gle-'chnisreden  Jesu. 

Rom  und  das  Christentum. 

Myth,  Ritual,  and  Religion.     2  vols. 

Das  Ritualbuch  des  Ammondienstes. 

Les  evangiles  synoptiques. 

Die  Auferstehung  Christi. 

Le  culte  divin  journalier  en  Egypte. 

Jesus  als  Charakter. 

Jesus  Christ  and  the  Christian  Character. 

Das  Urchristentum.     2  vols. 

Die  Entstehung  des  Christentums. 

Die  Entwickelung  des  Christentums. 

Religion  und  Religionen. 

Die  Religion,  ihr  Wesen  und  ihre  Ge- 
schichte.     2  vols. 

Geschichte  der  Religionsphilosophie  von 
Spinoza  bis  auf  die  Gegenwart.      2  vols. 

Orpheus. 

Histoire  du  peuple  d' Israel.     5  vols. 

Histoire  des  origines  du  Christianisme. 
7  vols. 

Etude  d'histoire  religieuse. 

Jesus  de  Nazareth.     2  vols. 

Die  Religion  zu  Rom  unter  den  Severern. 
(German  Tr.) 

Esquisse  d'une  philosophie  de  la  religion. 

La  doctrine  de  I'expiation  et  son  evo- 
lution historique. 

Les  religions  d'autorite  et  la  religion  de 
I'esprit. 

Die  Geschichte  Jesu.    2  vols. 

Die  Hollenfarth  der  Istar. 


Among  My  Books 


417 


Schurer,  Emil. 
Soltau,  Wilhelm. 


Stade,  Bernhard. 
Taylor,  Thomas. 
Treede,  Th. 

Usener,  Hermann. 
Vernes,  Maurice. 
Wake,  Staniland. 
Weinel,  Heinrich. 
Weiss,  Johannes. 
Weizsacker,  Karl. 


Wellhausen,  J. 


Wendt,  Hans,  Heinrich. 
Wernle,  Paul. 
Winckler,  Hugo. 
Wissowa,  Georg. 
Wrede,  W. 


A  History  of  the  Jewish  People  in  the  Time 

of  Jesus  Christ.     5  vols.     {Eng.  Tr.) 
Das    Fortleben    des    Heidentums    in    der 

altchristlichen  Kirche. 
Die  Geburtsgeschichte  Jesu  Christi. 
■  Unsere  Evangelien. 
Ursprungliches     Christentum     in     seiner 

Bedeutung  fiir  die  Cegenwart. 
Geschichte  des  Volkes  Israel.     2  vols. 
The  Eleusinian  and  Bacchic   Mysteries. 
Das  Heidentum  in  der  Romischen   Kirche. 

4  vols. 
Das  Weinachtsjest. 
Histoire  des  idees  messianiques. 
Serpent  Worship. 

Jesus  im  neunzehnten  Jahrhundert. 
Die  Predigt  Jesu  vom  Reiche  Gottes. 
Untersuchungen     iiber     die     Evangelische 

Geschichte. 
Das  apostolische  Zeitalter  der  Christlichen 

Kirche. 
Prolegomena  zur  Geschichte  Israels. 
Israelitische  und  Jiidische  Geschichte. 
Einleitung  in  die  drei  ersten  Evangelien. 
Das  Evangelium  Matthaei. 
Das  Evangelium  Marci. 
Das  Evangelium  Lucae. 
Die  Composition  des  Hexateuchs. 
Die  Lehre  Jesu. 
Die  A  nfdnge  unserer  Religion. 
Geschichte  Israels.     2  vols. 
Religion  und  Cultus  der  Romer. 
Das  Messiasgeheimniss  in  den  Evangelien. 


INDEX    TO    SCRIPTURE    PASSAGES 


HEBREW  SCRIPTURES 

PAGE 

Exodus  xxiii,  15 190 

Leviticus  xix,  18 286 

xxiv,  16 339 

Deuteronomy  vi,  4,  5 285 

xxi,  6,  7 352 

xxiii,  25 117 

XXV,  5 283 

II  Kings  xvii 67 

Psalms  ii 85 

xxii,  18 358 

xxvii 338 

Ixxiv 24 

xci 92 

ex 289 

cxxxvii 81 

Proverbs  xxxi,  6 357 

Isaiah  i,  11 272 

vi,  9,  10 134 

vii,  14 58 

xxiv,  18-20 366 

1,  6 342 

liii,  3 342 

Ixii,  9. 370 

Jeremiah  xxxviii 342 

Ezekiel  viii,  3 94 

Hosea  vi,  1,2 387 

Amos  V,  21 272 

viii,  8 366 

viii,  9 362 

Micah  V,  i 342 

V,  2 46 

vi,  6 272 

vi,  6-8 100 

Malachi 79 

CHRISTIAN  SCRIPTURES 

Matthew  i,  ii 42 

iii,  1-12 76 

iii,  13-17 83 

iv,  i-ii 88 

iv,  18-22 98 

vi,  9-13 208 


Matthew 


PAGE 

vi,  25-33 217 

viii,  1-4 107 

viii,  19-22 198 

viii,  23-27 139 

viii,  28-34 141 

ix,  1-8 108 

ix,  9-13 112 

ix,  14-17 114 

ix,  18-26 142 

X,  1-4 125 

X,  1-15 145 

X,  17-20 213 

X,  26-33 213 

X,  34.  35 223 

xi,  1-8 82 

xi,  18 82 

xi,  20-27 201 

xii,  1-8 117 

xii,  9-14 121 

xii,  15-21 123 

xii,  22-32 127 

xii,  22-45 211 

xii,  46-50 127 

xiii,  1-9 132 

xiii,  10-23 134 

xiii,  31-35 137 

xiii,  53-58 144 

xiv,  1-12 149 

xiv,  13-18 150 

xiv,  14-21 151 

xiv,  22-32 152 

xiv,  28 140 

xiv,  34-36 153 

XV,  1-20 153 

XV,  21-28 157 

XV,  32-39 159 

xvi,  1-12 159 

xvi,  13-28 164 

xvii,  14-21 190 

xvii,  22 191 

xviii,  i-ii 192 

xviii,  12-14 233 

xix,  1-9 246 

xix,  10-12 248 

xix,  13-15 249 


419 


420  Index  to  Scripture  Passages 


M  atthew — Continued 

xix,  16-30 250 

XX,  17-19 257 

XX,  20-28 258 

XX,  29-34 261 

xxi,  1-9 265 

xxi,  10,  II 269 

xxi,  12-17 273 

xxi,  18-22 276 

xxi,  23-27 277 

xxi,  33-46 277 

xxii 232 

xxii,  15-22 280 

xxii,  22-33 282 

xxii,  34-40 285 

xxii,  41-46 287 

xxiii 213,  290 

xxiii,  15 71 

xxiv,  I,  2 297 

xxiv,  3 298 

xxiv,  15-28 300 

xxiv,  29-31 301 

xxiv,  32-36 301 

xxiv,  45-51 222 

XXV,  1-13 303 

XXV,  14-30. . ..261,  303 

XXV,  31-46 304 

xxvi,  1-5 305 

xxvi,  6-13 307 

xxvi,  14-16 312 

xxvi,  17-19 315 

xxvi,  20-25 318 

xxvi,  26-29 318 

xxvi,  30-35 326 

xxvi,  36-46 330 

xxvi,  47-56 333 

xxvi,  57,  58 335 

xxvi,  51,  *66 337 

xxvi,  69-75 343 

xxvii,  I,  2,  11-14.  .  346 

xxvii,  15-26 350 

xxvii,  27-44 353 

xxvii,  45-54 362 

xxvii,  55,  56 369 

xxvii,  57-61 369 

xxviii,  l-IO 372,  381 

xxviii,  11-20 398 

Marki,  1-8 76 

i,  9-II 83 

1,12,13 88 

i,  16-20 98 

i,  21-28 100 

i,  35-39 106 

i,  40-45 107 


Mark 


PAGE 

i,  1-12 108 

i,  13-17 112 

i,  18-22 114 

ii,  1-6 121 

ii,  7-12 123 

ii,  13-19 125 

ii,  20-30 127 

ii.  31-35 127 

V,  1-9 132 

v,  10-20 134 

V,  12 134 

V,  21-25 135 

V,  26-29 136 

V,  30-34 137 

V,  35-41 139 

V,  1-20 141 

V,  21-44 142 

vi,  1-6 144 

vi,  7-13 145 

vi,  14-29 149 

vi,  30-33 150 

vi,  34-44 151 

VI,  46-52 152 

vi,  48 140 

vi,  53-56 153 

vii,  1-23 153 

vii,  24-30 157 

vii,  31-37 158 

viii,  1-9 159 

viii,  10-21 159 

viii,  12 92 

viii,  22-26 163 

viii,  27-38 164 

ix,  1 164 

ix,  2-13 188 

ix,  14-29 190 

ix,  30-32 191 

ix,  33-50 192 

X,  1-12 246 

X,  13-16 249 

X,  17-31 250 

X,  32-34 257 

X,  35-44 258 

X,  46-52 261 

xi,  i-io 265 

xi,  11-14 270 

xi,  15-19 273 

xi,  20-25 276 

XI,  27-33 277 

xii,  I-12 277 

xii,  13-17 280 

xii,  18-27 282 

xii,  28-34 285 

xii,  35-37 287 


Index  to  Scripture  Passages  421 


PACE 

Mark — Con  tinned 

xii,  38-40 290 

xii,  41-44 297 

xiii,  1,2 297 

xiii,  3.  4 298 

xiii,  14-23 300 

xiii,  24-27 301 

xiii,  28-37 301 

xiv,  1,2 305 

xiv,  3-9 307 

xiv,  10,11 312 

xiv,  12-16 315 

xiv,  17-21 318 

xiv,  22-25 318 

xiv,  26-31 326 

xiv,  32-42 330 

xiv,  43-52 333 

xiv,  53-54 335 

xiv,  55-65 337 

xiv,  66-72 343 

XV,  1-5 346 

XV,  6-15 350 

XV,  16-32 353 

XV,  33-39 362 

XV,  40,  41 369 

XV,  42-47 369 

xvi,  1-8 372,  381 

xvi,  9-20 401 

Luke  i,  ii 42 

iii,  1-17 76 

iii,  21,  22 83 

iv,  1-13 88 

iv,  16-30 99 

iv,  31-37 100 

iv,  42-44 106 

v,  i-ii 98 

v,  12-16 107 

V,  17-26 108 

v,  27-32 112 

V,  33-39 "4 

vi,  i-S 117 

vi,  i-ii 121 

vi,  12-16 121 

vi,  17-19 123 

vii,  18 87 

vii,  36-50 309 

viii,  4-8 132 

viii,  9-15 134 

viii,  16-18 135 

viii,  19-21 127 

viii,  22-25 139 

viii,  26-39 14^ 

viii,  40-56 142 

ix,  1-6 145 


PACB 

Luke  ix,  7-9 149 

ix,  10-12 150 

ix,  12-17 151 

ix,  18-27 164 

ix,  37-42 190 

ix,  43-45 191 

ix,  46-48 192 

ix,  51-55 196 

ix,  57-62 198 

X,  1-12 200 

X,  13-24 201 

X,  25-28 285 

X,  25-37 204 

X,  38-42 206 

xi,  1-13 206 

xi,  14-23 127 

xi,  20 103 

xi,  14-36 211 

xi,  29 92 

xi,  37-54 213 

xii,  1 162 

xii,  1-12 213 

xii,  13-21 214 

xii,  22-31 217 

xii,  32-40 221 

xii,  41-49 222 

xii,  49-53 223 

xii,  54-59 225 

xiii,  1-3 226 

xiii,  10-17 227 

xiii,  17-22 227 

xiii,  18-21 137 

xiii,  23-30 228 

xiii,  31-35 229 

xiv,  1-35 230 

XV,  l-io 233 

XV,  11-32 235 

xvi,  1-13 237 

xvi,  14-18 238 

xvi,  19-31 239 

xvii,  i-io 240 

xvii,  11-19 241 

xvii,  20-37 242 

xviii,  15-17 249 

xviii,  18-30 256 

xviii,  31-34 257 

xviii,  35-43 261 

xix,  i-io 261 

xix,  11-27 261,  303 

xix,  29-38 265 

xix,  39-44 269 

xix,  45-48 273 

XX,  1-8 277 

XX,  9-19 277 


422         Index  to  Scripture  Passages 


Luke — Continued 

XX,  20-26 280 

XX,  27-38 282 

XX,  41-44 287 

XX,  45-47 290 

xxi,  1-4 297 

XXI,  5,  6 297 

xxi,  7 298 

xxi,  20-24 300 

xxi,  25-28 301 

xxi,  29-36 301 

xxii,  I,  2 305 

xxii,  3-6 312 

xxii,  7-13 315 

xxii,  14-20 318 

xxii,  21,  22 318 

xxii,  21-30 325 

xxii,  24-28 258 

xxii,  31-34 326 

xxii,  35-38 328 

xxii,  39-46 330 

xxii,  47-53 333 

xxii,  54-55 335 

xxii,  56-62 343 


Luke  XX 

XX 


XXlll,  6-12. 


PAGB 

i.  63-71 337 

",  1-5 346 


349 

XXlll,  13-25 350 

xxiii,  26-43 353 

xxiii,  44-48 362 

xxiii,  49 369 

xxiii,  50-56 369 

xxiv,  l-ll 372,    381 

xxiv,  12-53 390 

John  iii,  3 83 

Acts,  X,  38 86 

Romans  xi,  8 134 

I  Cor.  i,  19-31 204 

ix,  14 201 

xi,  23 320 

XV,  27 204 

Hebrews  vi,  20 366 

IX,  II,  12 366 

X,  20 366 

xii,  2 169,313 

I  Tim.  vi,  20 5 

Rev.  xii,  7-9 202 


« 


INDEX  TO  SUBJECTS 


A 

PAGE 

"Abomination       of       Deso- 
lation"  25,  300 

Adonis ^ 3»» 

Alabaster  Box,  Story  of 307 

Alexander  the  Great 45 

"Ancient  of  Days" 27 

Antiochus  IV 21 

Apostolic  Authority 397 

Power 399 

"        Succession 401 

"Are    there    few     that     be 

saved?" 228 

Arrest  of  Jesus 333 

Asceticism ^72 

Attis 388 

Augustus,  Birthday  of 54 


B 


Baptism 82,  399 

Barabbas 35^ 

Barach,  Revelation  of 37 

Bethany 265,  307 

' '  Beware  of  the  Scribes  " 292 

Blasphemy 33^ 

Buddha,  Birth  of 169 


Cassarea  Philippi 65 

Calamities  as  Punishments .  .  265 

"Christ,"  Meaning  of 77 

Chronology •     12 

Church,  The  supposed  Found- 
ing of ^77 

Communion  Service 324 

Crucifixion 355 

Crucifixion,  Summing  up  Ac- 
count of 368 

Cyrus 81 


D 

PAGE 

Dangerous  Child,  Myth  of..     62 

Daniel,  Book  of 25 

Darkness  at  Crucifixion 362 

Denunciation  of  Pharisees ...    1 55 

Devil,  The  supposed 128 

Disciples,  Calling  of 126 

Divorce 239, 247,  248 

Double  Standard  of  Morals. . .  253 


E 


Emmaus,    Related    Incident 

at 291 

Enoch,  Book  of 34 

Erythraean  Sibyl 36 

Ezra 19 

Ezra,  Revelation  of 38 


Faith,  Definition  of 74 

False  Witnesses 338 

Fasting II5.   190 

Fatalism •  •  •   3i2 

Feeding  the  Multitude,  Ac- 
count of ^51 

Fig  Tree,  Lesson  of 302 

Forgiveness  of  God 234 

of  sins no 

Fourth  Gospel 3 

Friday  the  Day  of  Crucifixion  306 


Gadara ^41 

Gethsemane 33° 

Golden  Age,  Prophets'  Ideas 
of 16 


423 


424 


Index  to  Subjects 


PAGE 

Good  Samaritan,  The 204 

Gospel,  Meaning  of 76 

"        according  to  John. . .       3 
"         of  the  Hebrews.  .  .86,  93 

of  Peter 383 

Gospels I 

Guard  at  Tomb,  Story  of . . . .  398 


H 


Healings IO3-108 

Herod 49 

Herodias,  Story  of 149 

Holy  Coat  of  Treves 106 

Holy     Ghost,        Blasphemy 

against ...  129 

"          "       Mother  of  Jesus  93 

Hostility  to  Truth 123 

I 

Inscription  on  the  Cross 359 

Inspiration,    Pharisaic     Idea 

of 72 

Israelites,  Origin  of 66 

J 

Jairus'  Daughter 142 

James 185 

Jason 22 

Jesuit  Trinity 94 

Jesus,  Arrest  of 333 

"       Baptism  of 84 

"       Birth  of 42 

"      and  Children 249 

"       bearing  the  Cross 355 

"       concerning  Cha  acter.. .  156 

"               "           Forgiveness  309 

"               "           Love 309 

Truth 157 

"       Death  of 372 

"       did    not    predict    his 

"           Death 192 

"       his  Death  not  a  Ran- 
som   260 

"       Descent  of 65 

"       and  Devil 91 

"      did  not  found  a  Church  1 77 
"       Errors  concerning   his 

Religion 217 

"       the  "Following"  of.  171,253 

"       not  a  Messiah 167 


PAGE 

Jesus,  Popular  Misinterpreta- 
tion   of  Journey    to 

Jerusalem 197 

"       His    Mother    and    his 

Brethren 131 

"      at  Nazareth 144 

"      at  Pharisee's  House. .  .  309 
"      Plan  of  Priests  to  kill 

him 306 

"      His  Purpose  in  going 

to  Jerusalem.  ...  165, 175 
"      Purpose  of  Priests  to 

kill  him 276 

"      Reasons  for  his  Death .  .347 
"      and   the   Rich  Young 

Man 254 

"      and  the  Sadducees ....  282 

"      and  the  Storm 140 

"      in  the  Temple 270,  273 

"       his  supposed  Tempta- 
tions      91 

"      his     supposed     Virgin 

Birth 58 

Jesus'  Attitude  towards  Vol- 
unteers     198 

"      Use  of  Child  as  Illus- 
tration     193 

"       Denunciation  of  Phari- 
sees     155 

"       Determination  to  go  to  , 

Jerusalem 1 64 

"       Entry  into  Jerusalem. .   265 

"       Hymn  of  Victory 203 

"       Question      concerning 

David 287 

"       Supper  with  Disciples. .   307 

Jews  an  artificial  Race 66 

John  the  Baptist 82 

"      "         "         Death  of.  ..150 

Joseph  of  Arimathea 369 

Judas 312 

K 

Kingdom  of  God 

220,  255,  258,  267,  284,  299 
Kingdom  of  God  within  you. .   242 
Krishna    and    Slaughter    of 
Innocents 62 

L 

Last  Judgment 304 

Last  Supper 307 


Index  to  Subjects 


425 


PAGE 

Law,  Pharisaic  Development 

of 71 

Lazarus,  Story  of 240 

Leaven  of  the  Pharisees. .  .  68,  161 
Light  and   Darkness,    Myth 

of 62 

Logos  Theory  in  Fourth  Gos- 
pel       86 

Lord's  Prayer 207 

Love  the  Measure  of  Forgive- 
ness    309 

Luke's  Account  of  Journey  to 

Jerusalem 196 

Portraiture  of  Jesus. . .    155 

M 

Maccabees 36 

Magi 60 

Man  with  Palsy 109 

Marduk 62 

Mark's  Portraiture  of  Jesus .  .    1 55 

Mary  and  Martha 206,  265 

Matthew,   Supper  at  House 

of 113 

Menelaus 22 

Messiah,  Belief  in  a 15 

Miracles 140,  143,159 

Mithcas 388 

Monasticism 172 

Monotheism 20 

"  Mother  of  God  " 94 

Mount  of  Olives 330 

Mysteries 324 

N 

Nebuchadnezzar,  Dream  of.. .  26 

Nehemiah 19 

"  New  Covenant " 317 

New  Wine  in  Old  Bottles n6 

o 

Onias  III 21 

Osiris 388 

P 

Palm  Sunday 268 

Parable  of  Leaven 139 

"        "  Mustard  Seed 138 

"         "  Prodigal  Son 235 

"        "  Sower 133 


PAGE 

Parable  of  Supper 231 

"         "  Talents 262 

"         "  Ten  Virgins 303 

Parables,  Nature  of 132 

Passover 315 

not  kept  by  Jesus. . .  306 

Paul  a  Pharisee 69 

Paul's  Theory  of  Last  Sup- 
per   320 

Persian       and       Babylonian 

Beliefs 88 

"       Dualism 89 

Peter  at  High  Priest's  Palace .  344 

Peter's  Confession 166 

"       Denial 327,345 

Pharisaic     Demand     for     a 

Miracle 160 

"        Idea  of  God 70 

Interpretation        of 

Scriptures 72 

"        Rules 154 

Pharisaism 70,  194 

"         Age  of 70 

"         grafted       on      to 

Christianity  ...  69 

Physical  Resurrection 381 

Pilate 351 

Plato 45 

Prayer,  Teaching  of  Jesus. .  .  .  207 

Preaching  Tour  of  Disciples . .  145 

"  Prince  of  this  World  " 89 

Prodigal  Son,  Parable  of 235 

Psychic  Forces 143 

Purifications 154 

R 

Remission  of  Sins 395 

"Render  unto  Caesar" 280 

Resurrection  of  Body,  Origin 
of  Be- 
lief in  31 

•    Earliest 

Belief  con- 
cerning 383 
"            Materialisation 
of  Belief  con- 
cerning..  385,  394 
"           on  Third  Day..  387 
"           Paganisation  of 
Belief       con- 
cerning    389 

*'           Story  of  the. . . .  374 


426 


Index  to  Subjects 


PAGE 

Resurrection — Continued 

"  Transformation 
Account  of  by- 
Luke 384 

Rich  Man  and  Lazarus 239 

Romulus  and  Remus 187 

S 

Sabbath,  117,  119,   122,  227,230 

Sacrificial  System 314 

Sadducees 282 

Sanhedrim 335 

Santa  Rosalia 105 

Scribes 109,  291 

Second  Isaiah 81 

Sign  of  Prophet  Jonah 212 

Simon  of  Cyrene 160,  356 

Slaughter  of  Innocents 62 

"Son  of  God,"    Meaning    of 

Term 77 

Sons  of  God 45 

Son  of  Man 35,  111,222 

"     "     "     in  Book  of  Daniel     28 

Stilling  of  the  Waves 140 

Suffering  Messiah,  Theory  of.  257 

Sun  God,  The 389 

"     Birth  of  the 61 

Synagogue 100 

Syro-Phoenician  Woman 158 

T 

Taking  up  the  Cross 173,  252 


PAGB 

Temptations  of  Jesus 91 

Ten  Commandments 287 

"  This  is  my  Body  " 319 

"Thou  art  Peter" 175 

"      "       "       a  Forgery..   184 

Tiamat 62 

Transfiguration,  Account  of. . .  188 

Treason  of  Judas 318 

Trial  of  Jesus,  No  Trial 335 

"     "       "      Pilate 347 

"     "       "      Sanhedrim  ...   341 

Tribute  Money,  The 280 

Trinity 399 

"      Oriental  Model  of .  ...     94 
Two  Swords 328 

V 

Virgin  Births 42 

Voice     crying  —  "In     the 
Wilderness,  etc." 81 

W 

Washing  of  Hands 1 54 

Z 

Zacchasus 261 

Zerubbabel 79 

Zoroastrian  Ideas 89 


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Date  Due 


